Watch It Burn
by Karen T
Summary: Post-Rendezvous. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. **Chaps. 11-13 now up** (sorry about the delay)
1. Prologue

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Title: Watch It Burn

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Author: Karen T

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Rating: PG-13 / R

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Disclaimers: Same old, same old. Except for the time I spend writing this, nothing belongs to me.

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Spoilers: Everything through "Rendezvous," just to be safe. And for the sake of this story (which you should read as, "Because Karen didn't want to deal with it"), we're going to pretend that Will never went to Paris and never found out about Sydney's spyage. Will never talked to Jack, either. He's just still debating whether or not to publish his story about SD-6.

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Classification: Angst, Drama, AU.

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Archive: I'd be honored. Just let me know where so I can visit.

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Feedback: Always appreciated. Please send to poohmusings@yahoo.com.

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Notes: This story stems from a little idea that popped into my head a week before the season finale when all the spoilers I read kept mentioning how there'd be 2 deaths. So this is my take on who I, at the time, thought would die. And a big ol' gooey thanks to Kat for encouraging me to tackle this idea.

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Watch It Burn

As with any story, there is a beginning and there is an end. But where the beginning ends and the end begins, that is to be seen. 

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"God, will you stop? You're not my father or my boyfriend or… You know what? I'm not even sure if I consider you a friend, so just stop it. Stop acting like you can save me, Vaughn, because the truth is you can't, and even if you could, I'm not sure I'd want you to."

Days after they were said, her admonitions continue to ring loudly in his ears.

He and Sydney had been meeting inside the warehouse, sitting across a table from each other, when she'd suddenly lashed out at him. It had been a routine meeting with nothing substantial to cover since it'd been almost two weeks since SD-6 had recovered anything new regarding Rambaldi or Khasinau. (And it'd be another week before Marshall would stumble upon information relating to an unknown Rambaldi artifact possibly hidden in a fictitious water well in Caracas.)

Vaughn had asked for the meeting because he'd wanted to check up on her, to see if her determination to destroy herself mentally and emotionally had ceased. At first, it appeared as if it had. She'd walked into the warehouse with a light step and an unencumbered smile – two things he hadn't seen on her in awhile. She'd been wearing what looked like a new outfit: a tank-style sweater in a deep rose color and a gauzy skirt with matching rose-colored flowers on a black background that flirtatiously fluttered around her legs as she'd made her way to him. When he'd complimented her clothes, she'd ducked her head in embarrassment and admitted that she'd spent the day shopping and gossiping with Francie. Her demeanor had been friendly and pleasant and, he was ashamed to admit now, he'd reveled in it. He'd missed how easy it once used to be to speak to Sydney, how she hadn't always been prepared to wage war on every word that came out of his mouth. So it was under this assumption of reconciliation that he'd suggested – without thinking twice – that it would be good for her to continue doing 'normal' things with her friends rather than keeping to herself as she'd done in preceding weeks. That was when her smile had fallen into a straight line, her eyes had grown cold, and she'd hurled one insult at him after another.

In his office, Vaughn shifts uncomfortably in his chair, partly because of how much he dislikes reflecting back to the stinging words that were said that day, but also because of the cold draft currently swirling around his head. Jotting down a short message on a Post-It note, he reminds himself that he needs to place a call to Maintenance and inform them that the air conditioning is on the fritz again and that his office could masquerade as a meat locker in the afternoons.

For the past couple of months, Sydney's behavior has been erratic, at best, so he wasn't particularly surprised when she'd gone off on him during their second-to-last meeting. He agrees now with some of the things she'd said then. For example, maybe he is too soft to be a CIA agent. But he vehemently contests two points she'd made: he _is_ her friend and he _is_ going to save her, whether she wants him to or not.

"Hey, man. Can I borrow your computer for a sec? The IT guys are still working on mine."

Enraptured in his thoughts, it takes Vaughn a couple of hard blinks and one more twirl of the pen in his fingers before becoming fully aware of Weiss's request. "Uh, yeah, sure," he stammers as he pushes back his chair and rises to his feet. "You got a report you need to print out or something?"

"Not exactly." He settles into Vaughn's vacant seat and reluctantly admits, "I heard there's an autographed, mint condition, Barry Bonds rookie baseball card being auctioned on eBay right now, and I wanna see if I can afford to bid on it. Is it still okay for me to use your computer?"

"Yeah, it's fine. Go ahead."

Weiss spins the chair back around to face the computer and is in the process of connecting onto the Internet when his curiosity over his friend's flushed cheeks gets the better of him. "So, you looked pretty, um, determined when I walked in here. Was that you pumping yourself up to speak to Barnett, or a sign that you've already met with her and things went well?"

"What?" Caught thinking once again about Sydney, Vaughn's crimson face deepens an additional shade of red. "Oh, I…yeah, we…we spoke and things went well. Really well, actually."

"And? Did she agree to see Sydney?"

"Yeah. She didn't want to at first because she felt there'd be a conflict of interest since she already sees Jack on a semi-regular basis, but after a little wheeling and dealing—"

"Which is also known as whining and begging, right?" Weiss interjects with a smirk.

"Yes, thank you," Vaughn replies as he fails at holding back a smile. "Anyway, she eventually agreed to one meeting with the possibility of additional ones if she feels they're needed."

"That's great, buddy. I'm happy for you. And Sydney, too, of course. I mean, the girl's cracking and is in obvious need of some professional help."

"She's not cracking," Vaughn stiffly declares, his tone brusque.

"Look, I'm not trying to be mean and I know you feel the need to protect her or whatever, but, c'mon, Mike, the signs have been there. She's been _this_ close to going off the deep end for weeks now, and I didn't want to say anything to you, but Devlin's been seriously considering pulling you as her handler. He was willing to overlook Haladki's whole 'inappropriate relationship' thing in the beginning, but taking into account your and Sydney's behavior lately, Haladki's starting to look like, well, like Rambaldi, ironically enough."

"I don't care what the hell Haladki's been saying. Sydney's done damn good work for us since she came onboard even though it's been anything but easy for her, and if the agency isn't willing to appreciate everything that she's—"

Vaughn's thought is interrupted when another agent, Philip Cantor, enters the room. "Latest delivery, Vaughn," Philip announces, dropping a file folder onto the desk.

"Wait, what's this?" Vaughn demands as he reaches out and grabs hold of the departing man's left arm.

"The latest drop from Bristow."

"Bristow? _Sydney_ Bristow? Are you sure?"

"Yeah," Philip mutters with minor annoyance. "We got the call thirty minutes ago from her phone and extracted it from Bin Three ten minutes ago."

"But that's impossible. Sydney's in Caracas right now. In the middle of a mission, to be exact. There's no way she would've contacted us about a drop."

"Well, I don't know what to tell you then, but the call definitely came from her phone. You know we verify that before we send anyone out for a retrieval."

"But that doesn't—"

Standing up behind his partner, Weiss softly prods, "Maybe we should just find out what the drop says."

A feeling of dread courses through his body as Vaughn swallows some non-existent saliva in a vain attempt to dislodge the lump that has appeared in his throat. This doesn't feel right, he insists to himself. Philip must be confused because Syd wouldn't have contacted us thirty minutes ago. But despite how certain his voice sounds in his head, Vaughn's stomach continues to churn as he flips the folder open to reveal a crumpled, brown paper bag that's been smoothed out. The message isn't detailed and doesn't fill up the outer sides of the bag like most of Sydney's past dead-drops have: _Vaughn, Thanks for everything. Sydney_

Weiss is immediately perturbed by the finality he finds in those five words. "What the hell?" he cries. "That sounds like a—"

But Vaughn is already one step ahead of him. He shoves Weiss out of his way as he lunges for his phone. "Get me Jack Bristow! NOW!"


	2. Chapter 1

Please see Prologue for general info and disclaimers.

*~*

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Forty minutes earlier…

Dixon alternated between surveying his surroundings with watchful eyes and glancing down at the screen of the device in his right hand. The device was one of Marshall's inventions – something he'd created years ago when the technology had still been new and unexplored – and it had quickly become an essential SD-6 field tool. Besides acting as a global positioning system, it also provided a visual read-out of heat emissions within a twenty-five mile radius, thereby providing an advanced warning of possible incoming 'intruders.' That was how it had proved itself to be a vital asset on all operations. Shooting a quick peek at the water well that stood behind him, Dixon asked, "How's it going, Syd?"

Sydney slammed her right palm against the smooth wall of the well in order to prevent her body from crashing into it. She'd anticipated communication between herself and Dixon as she rappelled down the well, but she hadn't expected his voice to come booming into her ear, which was why she'd momentarily forgotten to keep her legs perpendicular to the wall. Once she'd managed to calm the swaying of the rope, she adjusted her ear piece (perhaps she'd gotten hers mixed-up with Dixon's?) and whispered, "Hey, Dix." She hoped he'd take her cue and spend the rest of the mission speaking in hushed tones. She lowered herself a few more inches down the well and felt as if she was entering an unending black hole. "You know how I've always said I'm not claustrophobic?"

Dixon turned around and faced the well with a look of trepidation on his face. "Yeah?" he prompted cautiously.

"Well, I'm rethinking that position right now."

"You going to be okay? We could switch."

The obvious concern in his voice gave her pause as Sydney suddenly found herself blinking back an unexpected onslaught of tears. "No, don't worry about it," she asserted a second later with an upbeat lilt. "I'll be fine. I wouldn't dream of inflicting this on anyone else, especially you. How are things going up there?"

"Everything looks good. Our perimeter's secure and there aren't any signs of anything out of the ordinary."

"Besides us, right?"

"Right," Dixon chuckled as he returned to his guard duties, intent on ignoring the sense of foreboding he felt pressing down upon his chest. Feeling uneasy during a mission was something he was familiar with since Sydney was the fearless one in their twosome, while he was always the fretful one who sweated the details. But there was something different about his anxiousness this time, something he couldn't quite put his finger on but made him that much more eager to complete the mission as quickly as possible. "You at the bottom yet, Syd?"

"Uh, not yet, but if Marshall's 'it's 100 feet down' is accurate, then I should be there—" Just as those words left her mouth, she felt her right foot, which she'd lowered slightly in order to feel for the floor, brush up against some loose pebbles. "Okay, I've hit the bottom. Give me a sec to get my bearings straight." Knowing that time was of the utmost importance to her at that point, Sydney dropped to her feet, swiftly unwrapped the rope from around her body, eased her pack off her back, and deftly located the mini flashlight she stored in one of its zippered hip pockets. The illumination that the flashlight provided was compact but bright enough to reveal that the diameter of the well was wider than she'd thought it to be. This, however, did not provide her with much comfort for all she could see were rows of neatly stacked and cemented together stones that seemed to climb heavenward. Rotating 360 degrees, she did a quick scan of her new environment to ensure that she hadn't just lowered herself into one or more booby-traps. Everything appeared copacetic and, upon completing her pirouette, she almost immediately located the one stone she and Dixon had embarked on this journey to find.

Standing 100 feet above her, Dixon paced around the well impatiently. He was now so agitated that he felt like he was ready to crawl out of his own skin. After several more seconds passed in which the only sound he heard through his ear piece was that of feet shuffling, he peered into the well's opening and asked, "Have you found the loose stone Marshall told us about?"

"Not yet," she lied without missing a beat. Reaching once more for her backpack, she pulled a cell phone out of the same hip pocket that had housed the flashlight. As she depressed a button to turn it on, she took a deep breath and muttered in annoyance, "Dammit, all the stones look the same! I could be here forever."

"Okay, calm down. You're doing great. We're not in any rush."

Down at the bottom of the hole, Sydney's eyes grew large when she saw how long it was taking her phone to get a signal. Her heartbeat tripled in pace and she was on the verge of hyperventilating when the phone's display screen lit up, thereby indicating its readiness to be used. "Yeah, except for how I want the two of us to be long gone before anyone from K-Directorate gets here," she declared in response to Dixon's comments. She punched in a familiar series of numbers and waited for the requisite three tones before pressing '3' and then '#' on the keypad.

"Let me worry about that," Dixon lightly, but also firmly, ordered. He was a little surprised by how quickly she'd become frustrated, but assumed it probably had to do with being stuck in a small space 100 feet underground.

"Sorry, but it's a reflex I can't turn off. Let's just chock it up to how much I dislike the sight of you bleeding," she gravely informed him as she pulled a thin silver tool out of her backpack and used it to try to ease a particular rock out of the well's circular wall. It refused to budge at first, but a little more persistence on her part resulted in its removal a second later. With more room to work with, it didn't take her very long to detach several more rocks from the wall. "Once was more than enough in my opinion and— Hey, I think I found the stone. Yeah, this is definitely the one. I've got a good grip on it…it's coming out…it's— Oh, God."

"What? What's going on?" He rushed once more to the side of the well, wrapped his fingers around its lip, and looked down its opening to see nothing but darkness. In his ear, he heard what sounded like a flurry of activities as well as a faint beeping noise, but he didn't know what to make of it all.

"It's— I think the stone's booby-trapped or something. There's this beeping but I can't tell if there're any wires." Her voice was frantic.

Dixon shrugged his own pack off his back and almost tore it open in his haste to pull out a shoebox-sized metal contraption from its main compartment. He set the box down on the ground beside his feet and flipped a switch that was located along its top. As he unwound a long length of wire and began snaking it down the well, he shouted, "Get out of there, Sydney!"

"No, wait, I see the wires attached to the stone. I think I can diffuse it."

"Sydney, I'm serious, get out! Clip on the extraction wire! I'm pulling you up!"

"Are you kidding me? There's no way I'm leaving this well without this artifact!"

"I'm not debating this with you, Syd! Clip on the wire!"

"No! Sloane said we need this artifact if we want to lure Khasinau to us, so don't think I'm going to bail that easily."

"Sydney!"

"Wait! I think I almost have it. I'm gonna cut the blue wire. I'm pretty sure that's the right one, but move away from the well, Dixon, because I don't want you to be hurt if I'm wrong!"

"What?! Do NOT cut that blue wire!"

"Will you just—"

"PUT ON THE DAMN EXTRACTION WIRE, SYDNEY!"

"GET AWAY, DIXON!"

"SYD—"

"MOVE!"

Perhaps it was all the shouting or maybe just his common sense taking over, but before truly grasping what he was doing, Dixon backed away from the well to safety. But once he realized where he was and what he'd done, he shook his head with disgust and began rushing forward. "SYDNEY, GET YOUR—"

He was unable to complete his sentence, though, because a thunderous roar that shook the ground eclipsed the sound of his voice as a fireball burst upwards from the depths of the well. 


	3. Chapter 2

Please see Prologue for general info and disclaimers.

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Twenty minutes earlier…

"That," Sydney panted as she pointed over her shoulder in the direction from which she and Dixon had come, "was _not_ a small hill."

"No," Dixon gasped, bent at the waist, his palms pressed against his thighs. "No, that certainly wasn't."

"I thought…Marshall said…it'd be a…small hill." She squinted up at the sun and then used the left sleeve of her T-shirt to wipe away some of the perspiration that had collected along her hairline.

"Well, I'm sure it—" he huffed before finding the need to pause for another breath. "I'm sure it looks small on a fifteen-inch computer screen."

"I guess. But, just to be clear, this means I'm not getting soft, right? Because I've gotta say, on that last part where the incline felt like it was ninety? I wasn't sure I was gonna… Well, you know."

"Yeah, I know," Dixon chuckled sardonically as he recalled how he, too, had had doubts about whether he would be able to complete their climb. "And, no, you're definitely not getting soft." Spinning around, he arched an eyebrow as he digested the sight of a water well basking in the bright sunlight. "I guess that's our well."

Sydney shuffled to his side with a look of uncertainty on her face. "I guess so," she agreed with a tinge of concern creeping into her voice.

"Well, I can understand why people think it's a real water well. I mean, it certainly looks like the real thing."

"But it's not, though. Right?" she hesitantly asked as she walked over to the side of the well and took a peek down its opening.

"It's not supposed to be."

Without thinking through what she was saying, she blurted out, "Okay, it better not be because if I end up lowering myself into a body of water, I'm gonna kick Marshall's ass when we back."

Dixon gave a boisterous laugh and threw an arm around her shoulders. "Only Marshall's ass? Not Sloane's, too?"

"I'd be wet, not crazy," she retorted playfully.

Just then, a much-appreciated breeze cut through the nearby trees and rustled their leaves, which captured the two agents' attention. "We'd better get started," Dixon advised.

With her backpack already off, Sydney nodded and reached into her pack for a bottle of water. "Yeah, let's get this show on the road before anyone decides to join us."

"Rope?" he offered as he threw a bundle of heavy-duty rope at her feet.

"Thanks." She recapped the bottle of water and tossed it in Dixon's direction. "Water?"

"Mucho gracias."

As Sydney began unwinding the long length of rope, she caught sight of her partner unloading a thin laptop computer from his backpack along with several other technological innovations. "Tell me something," she playfully began, "how come I'm always the one who has to shimmy down a rabbit hole while you get to stay clean and play with all of Marshall's toys?"

"I guess that's what you get for being paired up with an old man."

"You're not old! You're…aged, like a fine wine."

"Great, now you're comparing me to fermented grapes. I'm not sure if I should be flattered or insulted."

"You're impossible," she retorted with a giggle as she went to work securing one end of the rope to a nearby tree. When she was satisfied that tying the rope around the tree's trunk would hold her weight, she looked up to catch Dixon sneaking a sidelong glance at her, a small smile on his face. "What?" she asked suspiciously.

"Nothing," he quickly replied, but then changed his response when she continued to gaze at him questioningly. "Okay, well, it's just that…you seem happy, Sydney. Really, truly happy. It's been so long since I've seen you this way that I… I can't tell you how wonderful it is to see you light up again. I know it's not any of my business, but did something happen to bring this about?"

"No, not really," Sydney admitted sheepishly as she averted her eyes from his and felt her cheeks begin to burn. "I woke up this morning and it just felt like all the clouds had parted in my life and that the sun was shining again and everything made sense for once. It's like a weight was lifted. I know now that I don't have to stress over everything, that there's a reason behind everything happens."

"That's great, Syd," Dixon asserted, feeling as if he'd experienced the same epiphany she had. "I'm so proud of you."

"You're proud I'm no longer neurotic? If that's the case, then your kids must get rewarded with cookies and ice cream all the time."

"Funny," he shot back, but she could tell he hadn't been offended by her comment. "Hey, speaking of the kids, Diane mentioned to me before I left for this trip that she still hasn't heard from you about whether you can make it to Stephanie's birthday party next week."

"Oh my God," she cried, throwing her hands up into the air. "I can't believe I forgot to RSVP! It was on my to-do list, but then all that stuff in Arcachon happened and I— You know what? It doesn't matter. Yes, I can make it to the party. It sounds like a blast, and I've already bought Steph's gift. Do you wanna know what it is? Because Francie and I—"

"No! Don't tell me!" Dixon shouted in alarm, jumping to his feet and dramatically flapping his arms in front of him.

"O-kay," Sydney muttered with wide eyes as she took a cautious step away from him for good measure.

Taking note of her backward movement, he chuckled and explained, "At the ripe old age of almost six, Stephanie's already figured out how to wrap me around her little finger. She knows that all she has to do is stick her lower lip out a little and do this sad puppy dog eye thing with her eyes, and I'll give in and tell her whatever she wants. She almost got me to tell her what Diane and I bought her for her birthday by doing just that last week! I swear, if Diane hadn't happened to walk into the room when she did, then I probably would've spilled the beans and ruined the surprise. So, if you want your gift to remain a secret, don't tell me what it is."

Sydney tried to join in on his laughter while she pulled on a pair of leather gloves, but the memory of her own sixth birthday prevented her from doing anything more than pressing her lips into a tight smile. Her mother had still been alive when she'd turned six, but her father had been growing increasingly moody during the days leading up to her birthday. The morning of her special day, he'd picked her up and twirled her around when she'd sprinted towards him for a hug. But when her mother had entered the room, he'd set her down and walked away, suddenly cold and unreachable. And now, twenty-two years later, he still remained that way, without any sign of changing. She zipped up her backpack, sneaked a peek at Dixon, who appeared to be lost in familial thoughts of his own, and wondered how her life would've turned out if things with her family had been different.

When her gaze lingered a little too long on him, Dixon turned his head and found that it was now his turn to ask, "What?"

She dropped her head and covered her deepening blush with her hands. "Would it be completely inappropriate – as well as somewhat disturbing – if I said that I sometimes wish you were my father?" she sincerely asked after a moment's hesitation.

Dixon's mouth fell slightly open as his breath got caught in his throat. With moist eyes, he murmured, "Syd, I… That may be one of the nicest things anyone's ever said to me."

"Well, you deserve it. You're a great guy, and your kids and Diane are really lucky to have you to come home to. And I guess I'm pretty lucky myself because I get to hang out with you every day at work," she declared with a chuckle in an attempt to hide how her sudden rush of appreciation for Dixon was affecting her.

"I feel pretty lucky, too, Syd. And I'm sure your dad would feel the same way if—"

"My dad?" she scoffed. "Who knows what the hell he's thinking? I certainly don't."

"Sydney," Dixon started, his arm reaching out for her, "you shouldn't—"

Maneuvering herself just out of his reach, she slid her pack back on and strode over to the well with the untied end of the rope in tow. "We should get going. I know Sloane doesn't think K-Directorate or Khasinau knows about this well or what it houses, but there's no need to tempt fate, right?"

"Right, yeah." Dixon picked up one of the smaller devices that had been lying on the ground and turned it on as he headed towards her. "Good luck. And be careful."

"Always." As she swung one leg into the well's opening, she looked over her shoulder and flashed him a warm smile. "Bye, Dixon. I'll see you when I get back." 


	4. Chapter 3

Please see Prologue for general info and disclaimers.

*~*

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Thirty-nine hours earlier…

Drumming the fingertips of her right hand against her steering wheel, Sydney sighed and leaned back into her seat. The clock on her dashboard informed her that it was only a little after 8:30, but she was straining to keep her eyes open. She'd been having trouble sleeping lately, often tossing and turning in her bed as she watched the early morning hours tick by on her digital alarm clock. It wasn't that she wasn't tired because she was; it was just that she usually found herself wide awake during the hours of 11 p.m. to 5:30 a.m. and then willing herself to stay awake from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. But now that she actually found herself tired at a somewhat normal hour, she hoped that that meant she'd be able to get a decent night's sleep and minimize the huge bags she had growing underneath her eyes.

As she began to revel in the thought of wrapping herself in her fluffy down comforter and floating off to the land of peaceful dreams and lots of sheep, she spied a young man exit the store and proceeded to stalk him with her car. After he climbed into his little red Honda and drove out of the parking lot, she slid into the newly abandoned parking space and grabbed her coat from the passenger seat, all the while reminding herself that she should be sure to mention to Vaughn that the next time he wanted to have a clandestine meeting in public, he should either pick a less popular place or one with a larger parking lot.

She'd only been inside of the video rental store for about five minutes when she sensed someone join her in the Alfred Hitchcock aisle. Turning her head to her left, she saw Vaughn sidling up to her with a video sleeve clutched in one hand and a reflective expression on his face.

"In a suspense kind of mood?" he asked pleasantly as he lifted his eyes to meet hers.

"I don't know," she replied, matching his tone of voice. "My roommate's a big Hitchcock fan, so I thought I might surprise her with one of his movies."

"How about this one?" he suggested, removing one of the sleeves from a nearby shelf and holding it out to her. "It's one of my all-time favorites."

She glanced down at the proffered video and crinkled her nose when she saw the title 'Rear Window.' "Eh," she dismissed with a laugh. "I dissected that in an English class my junior year in college. Kind of took all the fun out of it."

"Oh, well, then how about…" As Vaughn pretended to be scouring the shelves for a suitable recommendation, he leaned towards her and whispered, "This new intel about a second Rambaldi manuscript came as a complete surprise to us. We had absolutely no idea that it existed at all."

"Well, don't feel too badly," Sydney quietly consoled as she joined his role playing game and leaned across him, her arm brushing against his chest, to pick up an intriguing video sleeve. "Sloane tried to act like he knew all about this second manuscript, but I could tell he was pretty surprised to learn about it, too."

"Oh, goodie, Sloane's as lost as we are. That's reassuring," he murmured sarcastically. "Anyway, your counter mission is identical to the one we had for the Mt. Aconcagua mission. Use the camera I'm about to give you to photograph all of the manuscript's pages, and then deliver the manuscript to SD-6 as ordered." Grabbing a video sleeve, he raised his voice and asked, "Hey, how about this one?"

When she accepted the sleeve, she felt her fingers wrap around the palm-sized camera Vaughn had placed the sleeve on top of in order to keep it hidden from view. Wrinkling her nose once more, she slipped the camera up the sleeve of her coat and returned the video sleeve to the shelf. "That doesn't look like something I'm in the mood to see tonight," she informed him kindly as she crossed her arms and deposited the camera into her open purse.

Thinking their meeting was over, Sydney turned her back to him so that it would appear as if she was giving this 'complete stranger' a cold shoulder and was about to walk away when she heard him mutter, in a low voice, "About what was said the last time we talked…"

She spun around almost instantly with a look of contrition on her face. "Could we—" Just then she remembered how there might be someone watching her, so she dropped to a knee and feigned retying a shoe. "Could we forget about all the stupid, terrible things I said at our last meeting? I am _so_ sorry, Vaughn. I had absolutely no right to say any of those things, and I feel like a complete idiot for having treated you that way. You've been nothing but a really great friend to me when I needed one. And I was _so_ out of line that I— Could we just forget about it? Please?"

"Forget about what?" Vaughn asked lightly with a grin as his way of showing that all was forgiven.

"Thank you."

He waited until Sydney was back to standing on both feet before adding, "But I _have_ been worried about you, and I've been thinking that maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea for you to talk to someone. A professional."

"What? Like a psychiatrist?" When she saw him give a short nod, she chuckled in amusement. "But why would I need to talk to a psychiatrist when I have you to talk to? You're all I need."

She'd expected the compliment to, at the very least, bring a smile to Vaughn's glum countenance, but his expression remained fix to one of distress and apprehension. "Sydney…"

"Really, I'm fine," she insisted quietly, never losing the cheerfulness from her voice. "Last week was…bad. But I'm much better now and we're back to being on good terms, so there's absolutely no need for me to be talking to any professional. Thanks for the concern, though." Looking around the rest of the store to the scores of students and young professionals who were seeking the one video they could rent that would wash all their cares away for a couple of hours, she declared, at normal room volume, "I'm not really seeing anything here I want. I hear there are a few decent shows on TV these days. Maybe I'll go and catch one of those tonight." As she was about to leave Vaughn for a second time, she turned and gave him a shy, disarming smile. "Have a good night. I'll call you once I'm back in the States. I promise." 


	5. Chapter 4

Please see Prologue for general info and disclaimers.

*~*

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An hour earlier…

Click-clack, click-clack, click-clack. The sound of her shoes slapping against the tiled floor reverberated down the empty lobby of McLaughlin Hall. Sydney looked down to check the time on her watch and cursed when she saw that it was already past 7:30. Taking a deep breath, she quickened her pace to a run as she headed for the stairs. Click-clack-click-clack-click-clack. Up four flights of stairs and then a sharp right down an abandoned hallway, she scanned the numbers printed along the tops of the closed office doors. 407. 415. 423. She needed room 439 and she needed the door to that room to be open. 427. 431. Urging her legs to move faster, she made a mad dash for the office four doors down and hurtled herself through its unobstructed doorway. "Professor Pierson?" she exclaimed in a breathless shout as she came to rest in front of a somewhat battered oak desk.

Natalie Pierson jerked upright in her chair at the unexpected intrusion. It was late, she'd spent the past four hours reading students' papers (some of which had been very poorly written), and the last thing she needed or wanted was a disruption just as she was about to head home. She opened her mouth to declare haughtily that her office hours had ended six hours ago when she noticed that the newest occupant in her office was Sydney Bristow. _Quixotic_ Sydney Bristow, she reiterated in her head, emphasizing the adjective she'd placed in front of the name.

After having spent the past fifteen years of her life being an English professor at a large university, she'd stumbled upon her fair share of graduate students who, like Sydney, failed to excel within the department because of their lack of resolve and perceived 'flakiness.' But, in her seasoned eyes, Sydney was different from all those other students who seemed perfectly happy to be nothing more than a career grad student. Natalie knew it was wrong of her to play favorites, but she repeatedly found herself mesmerized by the spark Sydney exuded when inspired. Glancing at her desk clock, she teased, "Cutting it a little close, aren't we, Ms. Bristow? I was about to start packing up to go home."

Sydney sighed and tucked her hair behind her ears. "I'm _so_ sorry, Dr. Pierson. I know I said I'd come see you at seven, but then my meeting at work ran late and I honestly tried to get here as quickly as I could, but there was this pile-up on—"

Natalie held up a hand and laughed. "It's okay, Sydney. I know how crazy things can get when you have a busy schedule like yours."

"Do you want me to come back? I could come back tomorrow. Oh, wait. Tomorrow's Saturday. Well, I could come back on Monday. Oh, except that I'm still going to be out of town on business on Monday. Tuesday then! I'll come back on—"

"Now's fine," Natalie interrupted gently. "But that's assuming you can calm your nerves down enough to stop speaking a mile a minute and in run-on sentences."

"Yes, I…I can." Sydney deposited herself into the wooden chair set-up in front of the desk and anxiously rubbed her fingers together as she stared at her professor expectantly.

Plucking a two-page, stapled document from the top of a pile, Natalie set it down on her desktop and pushed it in Sydney's direction. "This…is good."

"Really?"

"Yes," she maintained, noting with pleasure how much joy her news brought to her student's face. "It's very good, in fact. And I'll be honest and tell you that you a hard sell to get me to agree to let you change topics. I was extremely skeptical when you handed me this paper in class this morning and said you wanted to refocus your thesis on a new idea you'd had. But you've won me over. I think you could de great things with this."

Sydney covered her mouth with her hands and giggled gleefully like a child on Christmas morning. "You have no idea how happy I am to hear you say that. When this idea of revenge and its role in literature popped into my head, I knew – instantly – that I had to write about it. I mean, people say that the classic theme in literature is love, but everywhere you see love, you also see revenge. So I thought it'd be great to examine this relationship in classic writings in order to theorize whether it's love that begets revenge or revenge that begets love."

"Ah, the classic chicken-egg debate, but with a twist."

"Yes! There's no doubt that losing a loved one, especially at someone else's hand, brings out a thirst for vengeance. You see this in literature, the real world, everywhere. But my question is whether this…possible need for revenge heightens one's experience of love. Also, what does it mean when your desire for revenge and vengeance begins to fade, which is bound to happen as time passes? Does that mean your love for whoever has diminished as well?"

Back straightened, eyes flashing, and hands waving excitedly in front of her chest, a girl with questions who _wanted_ to find the answers had replaced the previously demure and nerve-racked Sydney. Natalie detected this change and smiled with pride. "Sounds like you've been thinking about this a lot longer than you led me to believe."

Sydney blushed and sucked her lower lip into her mouth in embarrassment. "Yeah, I, uh…I guess you could say it's been on my mind for awhile."

"Well, the thought you've already put into it shows. I stand enthusiastically behind your decision to change topics." When she saw Sydney open her mouth to respond, she quickly added, "_But_…as your thesis advisor, I feel I'd be remiss if I also didn't say that I'm…somewhat concerned."

"Concerned? But I thought you like the idea."

"I do, but… Sydney, I think you have great potential and I think this thesis could showcase all of your talents for critical thinking and story writing, but I'm concerned about you changing your topic two years after joining this program. And, quite frankly, I'm also a little suspicious of your commitment to the program. After all, it was just six weeks ago that you left me a voicemail message saying you were quitting the program only to – one day later – leave me second message saying you'd changed your mind."

"That was a—"

"Bad time. You were going through some rough stuff then. I know; you explained it all to me. But my point is that, seeing as how you're only a part-time student to begin with, two years is a lot of time and effort to turn your back on now. With your banking job monopolizing so much of your time, do you really think it's in your best interest to start over?"

Feeling slightly deflated, Sydney slumped down in her seat and blinked her eyes several times. While Dr. Pierson's earlier words of praise were still ringing in her ears, ten words were beginning to phase out all of the others: _With your banking job monopolizing so much of your time…_ It was always her damn banking job. No matter what she did or how much she tried to establish a second life for herself, it always came back to the 'banking job.'

When several seconds passed in which nothing was said, Natalie placed her elbows on her desk and leaned forward in her chair. "Sydney, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to—"

"No, it's okay," Sydney stated, forcing the corners of her lip upwards. "I know I haven't been the ideal student and that I have a rather infamous reputation within the department, but I really am committed to my studies and tackling this new idea for my thesis. I promise I'm going to focus more of my attention on completing this paper. I also have a feeling that, after my business trip this weekend, my responsibilities at the bank will…dwindle."

Natalie narrowed her eyes at the vagueness in Sydney's words, but ultimately decided not to fixate upon it. "Okay, then that's that. You'll forge straight ahead into the world of love and revenge, and I'll hitch a ride on you so that I can enjoy the show. Let's meet again some time next week after you've returned from your trip to discuss what steps you should take next."

"Sounds good."

The two women rose to their feet and Sydney walked over to the other side of the desk to hug her professor, something she'd never done before. "Thank you, Dr. Pierson. It means a lot to know you're supporting me on this."

Wrapped in her student's embrace, Natalie's eyebrows shot up as she awkwardly patted Sydney's back. "My pleasure, honey."

Ten minutes later, Sydney was back outside, basking in the solitude that a near empty campus provided her. She couldn't have wished for her meeting with Natalie Pierson to go any better than it had. Off in the distance, she heard a girl shriek in delight as a chorus of cheerful voices followed. She loved being on the campus on Friday nights, a time when students were more focused on shedding their school-week monotony than hanging around the various halls. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, pretending as if she was inhaling a special elixir that would change her life. But when she opened them back up, she was still standing in front of a garbage can, dressed in a typical SD-6 suit.

Reluctantly, she reached into her purse and extracted a brown paper bag. She'd staked out the campus's Maintenance Department for a whole month before fully convincing herself that its trash disposal schedule never changed. On Fridays, the last trash pick-up was always at 7 p.m., and none of the bins would be emptied again until 7 a.m. Monday morning. Crumpling up the paper bag, Sydney tossed it into the garbage can with a feeling of regret. She hated how what she was about to do would affect certain people in her life, but she knew it was for the best.

She probably would have remained in front of the bin for a little while longer if her cell phone hadn't rang. She retrieved the phone from her purse and answered, "Hello?"

"One Stop Video," an unfamiliar voice informed her, his tone clipped.

Shaking her head at the irony of the situation, Sydney smiled ruefully. "Okay. Thanks." With the phone still clutched in her right hand, she cast one last look at where her paper bag now resided and then hurried to her car. She had a meeting with Vaughn she needed to get to. 


	6. Chapter 5

Please see Prologue for general info and disclaimers.

*~*

__

Fifty minutes earlier…

Seated in the sterile SD-6 conference room, Sydney slid her eyeballs to her left without moving her head and then glanced back across the table at Dixon, with whom she exchanged amused glances. "Marshall? You're bouncing."

"Oh, I, uh, well, I, uh, I-I didn't mean to bother you," Marshall stammered from his chair.

Suppressing her desire to laugh, she swiveled her chair in his direction and said, with a straight face, "You're not bothering me at all. It's just that you seem rather…excited. Since Sloane's apparently running late, maybe you oughta get the meeting started for him."

"Oh, no, I…I should wait for Mr. Sloane," he responded solemnly, but Sydney and Dixon could tell from the glint that appeared in his eyes that the thought of running a briefing in Sloane's absence intrigued him more than he was letting on. After a second of serious contemplation, he jumped to feet and declared, "Well, since Mr. Sloane _is_ running late…" Rushing to the front of the table where Sloane normally resided during their briefings, he exhaled, shook his arms out in front of him, and then looked up to face the two seated agents with an expression of gravity. "Ms. Bristow, Mr. Dixon," he greeted each one with a nod, "during a routine hard drive cleaning, I stumbled upon a most fortuitous discovery." He paused for dramatic effect, but when he opened his mouth to speak again, his excitement overtook his restraint and a tumble of words flew out. "It'ssuchagreatthingyouguysthatyou'renevergonnabelieve—"

Just then, Sloane walked into the room and frowned at the image of Marshall holding court. "Marshall," he growled.

Slinking back to his chair like a newly reprimanded puppy, Marshall lowered his head and mumbled, "Sorry."

Once Marshall was seated, Sloane grinned and announced, "Well, I don't know how much he's told you, but I have wonderful news to share with the two of you. Thanks in part to Marshall's sharp eyes and skill, we've uncovered information on the whereabouts of a _second_ Rambaldi manuscript."

"A second manuscript?" Dixon uttered in astonishment, his mouth falling open in surprise.

"I didn't know a second one existed," Sydney added.

"A minor inference was made to its existence in the first manuscript; something about 'a story to make the circle whole.' Since the Alliance didn't learn anything more about it from either our missions or what we've been able to glean from K-Directorate and Khasinau, we assumed it to be a red herring Rambaldi inserted into the manuscript to confuse people. But when Marshall happened upon this new intel—"

"I was cleaning the hard drive on one of the laptops and found an encrypted file!" Marshall cut in.

"Yes. Thank you," Sloane grumbled, his words frigid and insincere. "As I was saying, once Marshall succeeded in decrypting the file, we became the first to learn that this second manuscript is wedged behind a stone in a water well located in a remote area of Caracas." An image of a stone-constructed well, complete with an attached wooden bucket, flickered onto the computer screens.

"Wait, a well?" Sydney queried, her voice obviously wary. She recalled all the times she'd either had to descend into the bowels of the Earth or squeeze her way through a submerged tunnel. But she'd never had to do both on the same mission before, and the prospect of having to do so soon wasn't appealing to her.

"We-we don't think the well's real," Marshall attempted to clarify.

"So it's a fake well?"

"Or one that's no longer in use."

"In any case," Sloane punctuated, growing annoyed at Sydney and Marshall's side conversation, "the well's dry. We've investigated this thoroughly and there's no water anywhere near it."

"How can you be sure K-Directorate and/or Khasinau doesn't already have this intel?" Dixon questioned. "Marshall said he found it when he was a cleaning a hard drive. That means we must've picked up during a mission."

"I'm not 100% sure that they don't. But all signs from those two camps lead me to believe that neither of them has any idea this second manuscript exists. That being the case, extracting it quickly and quietly is our number one priority. Sydney, you'll go down the well and retrieve the manuscript from behind this stone." An image of a grayish-pink stone replaced the one of the well on the computer screens. "Dixon will remain at ground level to provide you with protection. Detailed specs. of this operation are in the folder in front of you. Any questions?" Sydney flipped the black folder open and shook her head as Dixon did the same. "Good. Marshall?"

With the knowledge that he'd regained ownership of the floor, Marshall scurried to the front of the room, smiling brightly. "Hello. So, wow, gotta go down a well, huh? That sounds kinda exhausting, especially when you think about how the manuscript's 100 feet down there. Going down shouldn't be that hard, though, right? 'Cause you just, you know, take some rope, tie it to something strong, and let gravity run its course. But what about coming back up? Long way to travel. It'd take a lot of time to climb your way out. Plus you'll be all hot and sticky and just, ew, gross." Sydney giggled at the 'show' and encouraged Marshall to continue by nodding her head. "So, how'd you like a little help?" Reaching into a bag that had been sitting underneath the table, Marshall pulled out what appeared to be a metallic shoebox. "Now, I'd love to take credit for this masterpiece, but I'm afraid that goes to our friends in the Defense Department. They've been playing around with manufacturing ultra lightweight equipment SEALs can bring with them on reconnaissance missions, and Mr. Sloane talked them into letting us test-run some of the things they've put together."

"How did he manage to—" Sydney began to challenge before remembering that, in Marshall's mind, it made complete sense for the military to share their learnings with SD-6 since both were supposedly extensions of the U.S. government. When she saw everyone else in the room look at her in puzzlement, she quickly covered her tracks, all the while wondering who and how many Sloane had killed in order to gain access to this new technology. "Never mind. I'm sorry. I was thinking about something else."

Marshall shot Sydney a small smile to help her feel at ease again and then continued on with his report. "The nuts and bolts of this thing is titanium, which means it packs a punch without, well, knocking you out." He chuckled at his joke but grew serious when he saw Sloane's scowl. "Anyway, there's a titanium wire and motor inside. When Ms. Bristow's ready to leave the well, she'll give Mr. Dixon a hoot or a holler or…whatever it is you two do, and he'll lower the wire into the well, set the box onto the ground, flip this switch to secure it to the ground, and then push this button to pull her up. Two seconds later, she'll be back at ground level. It'll be like she was Superman."

Sydney and Dixon laughed at the flourish with which Marshall ended his demonstration and leaned forward in their seats to get a closer look at the box.

"You two will leave for Caracas tomorrow morning," Sloane pronounced as he opened the door to the conference room. "We'll see you back here on Tuesday."

Sydney and Dixon waved their good-byes to Marshall and headed back to their desks.

"Going home?" Dixon asked when he noticed her straightening the items on her desktop.

"Not yet. I've got to go back to campus first for a meeting with my thesis advisor."

"This late?" He raised his left wrist and looked at the time on his watch. "It's almost seven. You sure your professor's still there?"

"Seven?!" Sydney snatched her purse and a book off the top of her desk. "Great, I'm supposed to be _meeting_ with her at seven. I'd better go. See ya tomorrow morning. 'Night."

She heard Dixon wish her a good night as well as she strode to her father's office. Standing underneath the doorframe, she waited for him to acknowledge her, but ultimately had to call out, "Dad?"

Jack looked up, startled. "Oh, Sydney, I—"

"I don't know if you've heard," Sydney interjected, making her way towards his desk, "but Marshall found out there's a second Rambaldi manuscript hidden in a water well in Caracas. Dixon and I are flying out there tomorrow, so I wanted to return this book to you before I left. Thanks for letting me borrow it."

Jack glanced down at the item she was holding underneath his nose and read, scribbled on a slip of paper she'd taped to the cover of the book: _No time to tell Vaughn about trip. Please inform him for me._ Clearing his throat, he accepted the book and automatically crushed the note into a ball for him to dispose of later. "Thank you. I was thinking about rereading this over the weekend."

"Sure." Her face was emotionless and her demeanor was cold.

"Sydney, I know we haven't been…communicating very well…lately," he haltingly told her, his eyes focused on her feet. "But after what you said to me the last time we really talked, I…I don't know what I'm supposed to say to you. I don't know what you _want _me to say to you."

Gazing at her father's melancholy figure, she was struck by how, even when he was attempting to connect with her, he still felt so far away, so removed from who she was as a person and a daughter. Or maybe it was her who was being distant. "Well, Dad, sometimes there's just nothing else _to_ say. Wasn't that the conclusion I came to a month ago?"

And with that, she departed the office and returned him to his solitude. 


	7. Chapter 6

Please see Prologue for general info and disclaimers.

*~*

__

Four days earlier…

"Dammit!" Will screamed, slamming the cordless phone onto the countertop.

Sydney, who'd returned to her apartment and opened her front door just in time to hear Will's outburst, rushed to the kitchen with her heart pounding furiously in her chest. "What's going on?" She glanced back and forth from Will, who'd dropped into a chair and covered his face with his hands, to Francie, who was standing in front of the sink, washing some dishes. She didn't see any sign of blood. That was good.

"Will was mugged," Francie whispered, as if lowering her voice would prevent Will from hearing her.

"Oh my God," Sydney gasped, hurrying to her friend's side. "Are you are okay?" Images of a scuffle that involved fists and knives and a bleeding Will lying on the cold ground flashed through her mind as her breathing grew shallow.

"No! Wait! _Yes_, I'm fine. _No_, I wasn't mugged," he corrected, raising his head to shoot Francie an annoyed look. "I was kind of, sort of…pick-pocketed."

Relief swam through Sydney, weakening her knees and forcing her to grab onto the top of Will's chair in order to remain vertical. Relax, slow down, she commanded her heart. No one's dying. Not today. "'Kind of, sort of'?" she asked out loud in confusion. "You're not sure?"

"I— There—" He exhaled slowly and tried to regain his calm. "You know that credit card I keep for emergencies or big ticket items?"

"The platinum one?"

"Yeah, that one. Well, apparently, someone stole it out of my wallet. I had no clue it was gone until I received a statement for it today informing me that I'd maxed out the card and was being charged a penalty for going over the credit limit. The bill is huge! I almost passed out looking at that thing."

"Did you call the credit card company and tell them what had happened? Are they still holding you responsible for the charges?"

"Yeah, I called them. That was them I was on the phone with just now and they were…surprisingly understanding. I guess this sort of thing happens a lot. I don't know. Anyway, they looked at all my previous purchases, compared them to the ones listed on the current billing statement, and saw that the most recent purchases were bought at places I'd never shopped at before. Some of the stores are even miles from here. So they're going to send me a new card and aren't making me pay this bill. But, it's just… Ugh," Will groaned dramatically, his face contorting into an indignant grimace as he shuddered. "The thought of being violated like that…knowing that there was someone who spent a whole month pretending to be me, flashing my card everywhere he went…"

"Oh, get over yourself," Francie sneered from her post at the sink.

"Hey!" he yelped, springing upright in his chair. "Victim here! How 'bout a little sympathy?"

"Sweetie, I was feeling all kinds of sympathy for you, but then you started behaving as if someone walked into your room and pissed all over your clothes!" She swung her body to face him, her soapy hands clenched into fists as they dribbled water onto the floor. "Someone stole one of your credit cards, Will. It happens to people all the time. Get some perspective."

Taken aback by the fury in her roommate's voice, Sydney stared at her with wide eyes. She opened her mouth to put an end to her friends' sniping before one of them said something he or she would later regret, but Will spoke before she had a chance to intercede. "Look," he began, his voice echoing the amount of anger that had been in Francie's, "I think I have every right to be as outraged as—"

"No, _you_ look!" Francie yelled, which caused Sydney to recoil in shock. "I've maxed out a credit card before _and_ been penalized for going over the credit limit **_and_** had to figure out a way to pay all that money back without totally screwing up my credit rating. So why don't you just consider yourself lucky and stop bitching and moaning about it?"

"What?!" Will screeched. "I can't believe you're comparing those two situations! They're like apples and oranges! You can't—"

"Uh, guys," Sydney timidly attempt to interject.

"Hey, if you don't like what I have to say, then you can just leave!" Francie countered. "This is _my_ apartment, so why don't _you_ get out?"

"What the hell is up your butt, Francie?" Will demanded, leaping to his feet as a vein over his left temple began to pulsate. "Is it that time of month or something?"

Sydney squeezed her eyes shut and cringed as Will's comment drove the kitchen to a deathly silence. "Go to hell," Francie hissed a few seconds later, her previously overt rage giving way to one of quiet tones. She stalked to her room and contemplated slamming the door behind her, but ended up only easing it shut.

"Okay, what the hell just happened?" Sydney asked, her eyes trained on her roommate's closed bedroom door.

"You were here. You saw how she attacked me," an obviously still upset Will attempted to instigate.

"Will…"

"No, I mean it! You saw how she jumped down my throat for absolutely no reason!"

"Stop it," she ordered as she rose to her feet with the intention of going to Francie's room. "Just sit there and…not talk."

"But—"

"Will!"

"Okay, okay. I'm sitting, not talking…"

"Thank you." Leaving Will behind in the kitchen, Sydney crept down the hallway and hesitated outside Francie's door as she strained to hear something – anything – coming from the other side. There was only silence. "Francie?" she called out, gently knocking against the door. "Is it all right if I come in?" Still only silence, so she took that as a 'yes' and let herself into the room.

Francie was by her desk, fiddling around with some loose sheets of paper as she kept her face hidden from view. "I'm fine, Syd," she declared without waiting for the inevitable 'How are you?' question.

"Really?" She wanted to say more, but suppressed the desire to do so. Francie crossed in front of her on her way to pick up a book from off the floor but continued to hold her face out of her view. This worried Sydney more than anything else did.

"Yes. I… It's nothing. Tell Will I'm sorry I yelled at him." She traveled to yet another corner of her room and wished she'd fought a little harder for the larger of the two bedrooms when she'd moved in.

"You can tell Will that yourself, but— Okay, stop." Sydney reached out and grabbed hold of Francie's shoulders when she crossed her path a second time. "Stop buzzing around here like a bee because it's freaking me out. Here." She maneuvered both of them to the edge of the bed, where they sat down. "Look, I don't care that you flipped out at Will. But I do care that you're saying it had to do with nothing. That's one of my lines and I know you never believe me when I say it, so I'm definitely not going to believe you when _you_ say it. What's going on, Francie? What's this all about?"

Francie dropped her head and stared at her hands as one second passed and then another and then another. Finally she admitted, slowly, "Before Will found out all that stuff about his credit card, we were at the supermarket and he…he told me that he thought it was a bad idea for me to give Charlie a second chance. Actually, I think his exact words were 'You'd have to be stupid to even think about seeing that guy again.'"

"Oh, Francie," Sydney sighed as she placed an arm around her roommate's shoulder and give her a sideways hug. She knew how much Will's words must have stung.

"I didn't say anything back to him then because…well, I didn't know what to say. But it was all I could think about for the rest of the shopping trip and on the drive back over here and during the whole credit card thing. I just… Am I making a huge mistake taking him back?" Francie implored, her moist eyes desperately searching Sydney's face for the definitive answer.

"Francie, I don't—"

"Am I being an idiot for taking him at his word and believing he's changed? He's promised me that he's different now, that he's grown up and realized how much he screwed up before. He swears that— God, Syd, I _need_ to believe in this. I need—" Her voice cracked as she dropped her head once more. "I _am_ being stupid, aren't I? I've been here before. I know how this ends. Why do I— What makes me think it's going to be any different this time around? God, I'm _such_ an idiot."

"Hey, stop it," Sydney urged. "Will said what he did because he cares about you and he doesn't want to see you get hurt again. But that doesn't mean you automatically become an idiot if you disagree with him. You're…an optimist, Francie. You want to believe people can change for the better and that happy endings are possible. I don't think that's necessarily such a bad thing. Maybe more people should try to be that way," she added as an afterthought, thinking about herself.

"I don't know…"

"How about this then? I'm gonna take you and Will out to dinner and you two are gonna kiss and make up. Then you and I are going to come back here, drink way too much wine, eat way too many of those peanut butter-chocolate chip cookies you made, and spend as much time as we need hashing this thing out."

"Really?" Francie cracked a smile at the suggestion before recalling something. "But weren't you planning to work on your thesis tonight?"

"Eh, I can do that some other time. This is more important."

"Thank you, Syd. You're the best," Francie gushed as she threw her arms around Sydney's neck and pulled her close. "Sometimes I…I really think I'd go crazy without you here."

"You'd be fine," Sydney proclaimed, returning the hug as her eyes drifted to a framed photograph on Francie's dresser. It was a picture of the two of them from Halloween their sophomore year in college. They were dressed as M&Ms – she in red, Francie in green – with their arms draped across each other's shoulders. Friends forever, she thought to herself as she allowed the memory of that wild and crazy night to wash over her. But out loud, what she said was, "You're a lot stronger than you give yourself credit for."

"I think we both are," Francie asserted as she pulled back and looked intently into Sydney's face.

This time it was Sydney who shifted her eyes away. "Yeah, sure," she replied nonchalantly, but she was already on her feet and headed for the door. "What do you say we let Will know he's out of the doghouse?"


	8. Chapter 7

Please see Prologue for general info and disclaimers.

*~*

__

Three weeks earlier…

"Hey, Marshall?" Sydney poked her head into Marshall's office to see him hard at work with a pair of safety goggles strapped around his head and a soldering gun in his right hand.

"Ms. Bristow!" he welcomed ecstatically as he turned his head in her direction and attempted to push the goggles up onto his forehead with his left wrist. He grinned and gestured for her to enter the room. "C'mon in," he invited just as the tip of the soldering gun, which he hadn't been paying attention to, brushed against an object on the table and sent up a series of sparks and a plume of smoke.

"Oh, God, did I make you do that?" Sydney asked, rushing to look at what remained of Marshall's latest project.

"No, no. I should've— It's a…it's a little unstable. Still," he admitted forlornly. "That's the sixth time that's happened today."

"Then the seventh time could be the charm, right?"

"Right." His smile returned as he picked up a charred cylindrical shell and held it before his eyes. "Sorry, little guy. Time to go into the trash with the rest of your friends."

"I'm sorry I interrupted you," Sydney said with a wince. "I should've knocked first."

"No, I— When I can get this thing to stop blowing up on me, it'll be so great so that it's not going to matter how many times I had to rebuild it."

"What's it going to do?"

"Well, it'll be fantastic." Marshall clapped his hands excitedly and ran to his desk to show her some blueprints he'd designed. "See, it'll look like any other pen, like 'Ooh, a ballpoint,'" he mimicked, clicking a regular pen on and off a few times. "_But_ it'll also work as a surveillance system scrambler, an electronic code breaker that'll gain you access to any doors locked electronically, and a high power laser that'll cut through anything. Oh, and the best part?" He reached into the right side pocket of his pants, pulled out his 'space' pen, and demonstrated its ability to write upside-down by scribbling spirals on the underside of a piece of wood. "You should be able to write upside-down with it!"

Sydney burst out laughing at Marshall's antics as she declared, "Wow, multifunctional _and_ practical. I love it already."

"Yeah, I'm just…I'm having some problems cramming all that stuff into such a small…thing. But it'll happen," he promised, rolling the blueprints back up. "Eventually. Anyway, was there something you needed from me, Ms. Bristow?"

"Oh, right. I was, um, I was kind of hoping you could help me with something that's been bothering me lately."

Marshall pulled his goggles off his head and gazed at her in concern. "Is everything all right?"

Automatically kicking into excuse mode, which had become her default reaction as of late whenever anyone asked if she was okay, she spluttered, "What? Oh, yeah, no, everything's fine. I'm just—" Sydney chuckled at her incoherence and took a deep breath as she retucked her hair behind her ears. "Okay, let's try that again. I've been thinking a lot lately about the Cape Town mission."

"The one where you hacked into a server to find out information on Bentley Calder?"

"Yeah, that one. A day after I got back from Cape Town, you informed me that no data had been recovered from the laptop. I think you mentioned something about someone realizing I was there and pulsing the computer as I left. But then, later that day, you were able to get, from that same hard drive, Calder's address in Australia."

"Yeah…"

"Well," Sydney paused to wrap a strand of hair around her right index finger as she attempted to appear as laid-back as possible, "what I've been wondering is how you managed to do that. I mean, I know you're really good with computers and stuff, but if everything had been erased, how'd you come up with an address? Dixon thinks that maybe not everything _had_ gotten erased, but I'm thinking that maybe I picked up some additional file when I downloaded stuff from the server. Something you didn't originally spot because you weren't looking for it. I hear that happens all the time on our missions."

Marshall tugged uncomfortably at the collar of his shirt. He hated thinking back to the Cape Town operation, and he especially hated thinking about it in relation to Sydney. "No-no, neither you nor Dixon are right, but…I guess he's closer than you are. See, when you—" He stopped himself, his eyes focused on the scratched tiles of his office floor, and beseeched, "Do we have to talk about this, Ms. Bristow?"

"Oh, uh…" Sydney had assumed Marshall would be eager, if not overly so, to discuss his amazing skills and was now at a loss as to what tack she should try next. "I was just…curious, but if you're not allowed to talk about it or don't want to—"

"Erased files leave behind ghosts," he blurted out, his face a mask of torture and pain. His eyes were squeezed shut and she could tell from the way in which the centers of his cheeks were caving in that he was biting down – hard – on the inner walls of his mouth.

"Marshall, if you don't want to talk about it…"

"No, it's…" He shook his head and when he looked back in her direction, he'd forced his characteristically charming smile back onto his face. "Everything that you'd managed to download in Cape Town _had_ been deleted. Probably by Agent Hicks right after he accessed whatever information he needed. But the erased files left behind a…trail of breadcrumbs, so to speak. It took me awhile, but I was able to piece together enough of the trail to recover that address. That's how I got it."

"Oh. So no piggyback file then? Oh, well. It was just a guess on my part. That sort of thing probably doesn't happen that often anyway, huh?" she dismissed.

"Not often, but it's not unheard of. Usually it's just inconsequential stuff: old lunch orders or a sentence or two from a random e-mail message." Marshall's eyes jumped to life as he chuckled and recollected, "Although there was this one time Malcolm inadvertently snagged half a memo detailing the possibility of an internal coup at FTL. Sloane really liked that one after I decrypted it for him." 

"I'm sure he did. Thanks, Marshall." Sydney flashed him a smile and gave his shoulder a squeeze as she turned to leave. Her mission had been a success.

"Oh, uh…Ms. Bristow?" He wrung his hands and felt goose bumps pop up underneath his shirtsleeves. "I— I wanted to say this earlier, but didn't— I mean, I don't know if— I'm sorry about what happened to Agent Hicks. I know he betrayed SD-6 – and you – but I also know you two were…close. So I'm sorry you had to go through that. You shouldn't have had to."

Sydney froze where she stood, a jaunty half-grin still plastered on her face. Marshall was unveiling himself to be a man full of surprises. _I also know you two were…close._ Oh, if you only knew how close, she thought, her heart quickening in pace. She could still hear Noah, taste him, feel him…his callused hands tangled in her hair, caressing her cheek, warming her arms, sliding underneath her clothes… She knew Marshall had been sincere with his sentiments, but she also knew he was now watching her, studying her expressions, which, if she weren't careful, would only later compel him to ask "Why?"

"Yes, thank you," she replied, her voice sounding disastrously stiff and strained in her ears even though its timbre hadn't actually changed. "Noah— I mean Agent Hicks…he used to be a good friend, but… What's done is done. Thanks for the help with the Cape Town question. Good luck with the pen." She laughed (because she thought she should) before taking long strides out into the hallway.

__

…you two were…close. Close. Everything felt close to her these days. Everything. 


	9. Chapter 8

Please see Prologue for general info and disclaimers.

*~*

__

Six days earlier…

"There's the birthday girl."

Seated on the hardwood floor with her back pressed against a wall, her arms wrapped around her bent legs, and a half-empty beer bottle growing warm in her hands, Sydney lifted her head to see Will smiling down at her. "You made it," she replied, the words rolling lazily off her tongue as she grinned back up at him.

"Yeah, sorry I'm late," he apologized, taking a seat beside her on the floor. "Kitvack decided that she hated the entire second half of my article on Freeway Sam and ordered me to do a complete rewrite before I could leave the office. And then, on top of all that, I had the print guys breathing down my neck because they needed to know how much space this article's going to end up taking and it was just… It was bad. Believe me. I didn't think I was ever gonna get out of there. Anyway, happy birthday. I'm sorry I wasn't here for the big surprise scene."

"That's okay," Sydney cooed, leaning her head against his shoulder. "I'm just happy you're here now."

Will raised an eyebrow at the extremely mellow Sydney resting against him and couldn't help asking, "How many beers have you had, Syd?"

"Oh, I don't know," she slurred, her eyes falling shut as she yearned for a night of blissful sleep. "Probably two too many."

"Are you drunk?"

"Why?" Cracking an eye open, Sydney turned and gazed at him in what she thought was a seductive manner. "Are you trying to figure out if you can take advantage of me, Will Tippin?"

"Actually," he responded, chuckling at her come-on, "I was trying to figure out if this would be an opportune time for me to find out why you've been so depressed lately. You know, ask you a few choice questions while your defense mechanisms are a little…less than 100%."

The haze Sydney had been so eager to escape into when the night had begun quickly dissipated from her mind as the full weight of her existence tumbled once again upon her. No longer smiling and no longer feeling playful, she scooted away from Will and sighed, "Will, don't."

"Hey, Syd, I was just kidding. You know I'd never—"

"Well, I'm not," she declared with as much force as she could muster. "I know you and Francie have been worried about me and I know my reasons for my moodiness have been, well, crap. But the reason I haven't told you more isn't because I don't want to or because I don't trust you, but because it has to do with work and there're those non-disclosure forms and—"

"Covert agreements and dumb ass promises from a job that really sucks," Will broke in. "I know. Trust me, I know."

Sydney laughed at the sarcasm in his voice as she moved back to his side and lay her head on his shoulder once more. "You really hate my job, don't you?"

"Like you wouldn't believe," he stated without missing a beat. "But seriously, I'm sorry I made you upset. I really didn't mean to."

"Don't worry about it. We're at a party. No apologies allowed."

Will smiled and rested his head on top of Sydney's. "Well, thank you for that, but I think I'd better go find Francie and tell her I'm sorry for showing up late. To be honest, I'm actually kinda surprised there isn't a sign taped on the outside of the front door saying 'Will Tippin not welcome here.'"

Lifting the beer bottle to her lips, she pointed towards the middle of the room, where the makeshift dance floor was located, and mumbled, "I don't think she's noticed your absence."

"What do you mean…" His words trailed off as he finally figured out where Sydney was pointing and saw Francie snuggled up in the arms of a man. "Hey, did she hook up with someone? Go, Francie. I always knew she would— Oh my God. Is that…?"

"Yep," Sydney responded gleefully.

"Charlie. She's back together with Charlie?"

"I don't know about the together part, but she invited him to the party and they've been inseparable since he showed up. I think it's great."

"Wait. Charlie? Yanked-her-heart-out-of-her-chest-threw-it-on-the-ground-and-then-danced-the-Macarena-on-it Charlie?"

Sydney snickered and thumped her bottle against the center of his chest. "Here. You sound like you need this more than I do."

"Well, I just… I never… Wow, you show up a few hours late to a party and it's like you've walked into an alternate universe."

"The world's a funny place, Will."

"Yeah, I guess."

The two fell silent as Will downed what remained of Sydney's beer. The lukewarm liquid burned his throat, causing him to cringe – which alcohol always did – as he found himself unable to tear his eyes away from Francie. She and Charlie were swaying in time to the music and they both seemed oblivious to the fact that a party was occurring around them. They look so happy, he thought, immediately wishing he was like Sydney and had consumed two too many beers. He couldn't remember the last time he'd gone on a real date. Carly? Could she really have been the last one? The one Amy had set him up with and he'd wanted to ditch within the first five minutes? God, that'd been…what? Six months ago? He really was going through a dry spell. Yes, there'd been Jenny, but they'd never actually dated.

A slow smile crept across his face as he recalled how she'd shown up at his door one night, uninvited and completely soaked. She'd claimed she'd been visiting a friend who lived near him and had decided on a whim to stop by and say hi. She'd also claimed that she hadn't realized it was raining. She'd smirked lasciviously and asked if he had a towel she could borrow, knowing that he knew why she was there. He can't remember whether he ever gave her that towel. But, then again, the towel hadn't really been needed because they'd ended up in his bed soon enough.

But still, he missed romance. He'd deny it if asked, but he missed the lightheadedness and the quiver in the pit of his stomach that he experienced only when he was on his way to meet up with a great girl. Sydney sometimes elicited that bodily response from him, but… He turned his head and watched her gaze dreamily up at the ceiling, unaware of his scrutiny. What was she thinking about? He often asked himself that and yet he never got any closer to an answer. If he asked her, he knew she'd say, without hesitation, "Oh, nothing." And then she'd mention something about work or school or her relationship with her father, depending on what mood she was in. She was an open book and a closed book to him, all at the same time.

Perhaps it was his frustration over this or his lack of a girlfriend or the overall state of his life that led him to tap Sydney's left foot with his right one. "Hey, you know how I said I was late because I had to rewrite part of an article?"

"Mm-hmm." Certain that she was about to be treated to another one of Will's entertaining stories, she turned to look at him and smiled. "Freeway Sam, right?"

"Right. I, uh…" He hesitated as he pulled his glasses away from his face. "I lied when I said that. The Freeway Sam article's a piece of fluff. I don't think Kitvack even bothered to read it. I was late because I was out walking. Walking and thinking."

Sydney straightened her stooped back against the wall and struggled to overcome the fatigue that had lay claim to her mind. She didn't want to have to think about being cautious or concerned, but there was something about Will's tone that was triggering her survival instinct. "Will, are you… Is something going on?"

"I think I may've gotten in over my head on something," he admitted with a sigh as he rubbed his eyes with the butt of his left hand. "I've been working on this article about this guy who's in jail for larceny. He insists that he's innocent and I believe him."

"Okay, so you're…what? Hoping that if you write this article about him, then his sentence will get overturned? I don't know a lot about how the justice system works, but I'm pretty sure that's not how." Now fully alert, Sydney studied Will with wide eyes, every muscle in her body tightening as she dug her fingernails into the palms of her hands.

"No, this is about a lot more than getting a man out of jail, Syd. This guy, he's a…or he _was_ a computer programmer and he started this business that one company in particular really wanted to buy from him. When he refused to sell, this company threatened him. They told him that if he didn't give them what they wanted, then they'd turn his life upside-down. He didn't take them seriously because, well, c'mon, it's not like we're living in the wild, wild West, right? But then he came home from work nine years ago and found his wife. Dead. The police ruled it a suicide, but… He pled guilty to a larceny charge soon afterwards and gave up his business in the process. Now he's in jail and his daughter's living on an entirely different continent for her own protection."

"Will, this sounds serious."

"That's because it _is_ serious."

"How did you get connected with this guy? Is he even—"

"Look, that doesn't matter," Will insisted, sliding himself closer to Sydney and dropping his voice even lower. "I believe this guy and everything he's told me about what this company's done to his family and his life."

Feeling as if her heart would break through her rib cage, Sydney licked her lips and exhaled unevenly. "What are you doing with him, Will? What does he want from you?"

"He wants to right a wrong. He knows he can't bring his wife back. And he knows it's going to be another eight years before he gets out of jail, so his daughter's going to have to grow up alone. He can't change any of that. But what he can change – the _only_ thing he can change – is to take this company down, to show them that they can't threaten and destroy innocent people's lives without suffering any repercussions. He has the proof he needs to show what this company did."

"And he wants to use you as his means for doing so."

"Yeah. And he didn't seek me out, if that's what you're thinking. We kind of…stumbled upon each other."

Sydney shifted her gaze away from Will's imploring face and focused her eyes on a gray smudge located just above his left shoulder. The things he'd told her, the threats and the killings, they sounded frighteningly familiar as a kernel of dread began to expand in her belly. He might not know what he was exactly up against, but she did. She knew all too well. "If things are as simple as you've just laid out," she croaked, her eyes still fixated upon the blotch on the wall, "then you wouldn't have been out walking and thinking tonight. What happened, Will? Were you threatened?"

"No," he replied too quickly to be believed. But when he saw Sydney drop her head and sigh, he confessed, "Okay, maybe once. Or twice." A phantom pain shot up his left cheekbone as he recalled his 'bout' with his kidnappers. "But that's it and—"

"Twice! What are you doing, Will? This isn't a game. These guys obviously mean business and I—"

"I know!" he barked before checking himself and lowering his volume. "I know, Syd. I'm not stupid. I dropped the story. I went back to the prison and told the guy there that I couldn't – I _wouldn't_ – pursue this story anymore. But then he asked me why and I coul—"

"Why?!" Sydney gasped, her voice catching in the middle of her throat. "Is he on crack? If anyone should know why you wouldn't want—"

"No, he understood my reasons, but… He told me that if he had a chance to do it over again, he still wouldn't have sold his business to this company, but he also wouldn't have just ignored them when they made their threats. He said that he would've gone to the police and tried to do everything he could to stop them. And I… I just feel that if he's still willing to take this chance even after knowing everything that happened to his family, then what right do I have to not be willing to do the same. I mean, I became a journalist because I wanted to report the truth and I've now been given the perfect opportunity to do that. What kind of journalist am I if, at the first sign of danger, I turn and run?"

"What kind of journalist?" she exclaimed as her vision blurred and she lost control over weeks' worth of suppressed emotions. "How about a smart one, Will? Or a live one? Of course this guy – whoever he is – says he'd try to stop this company. He can say this without having to think twice about it because he already knows that, regardless of whether he goes to the police or tries to ignore them, his wife is _still_ going to end up dead. He is _still_ going to end up in prison. And his daughter is _still_ going to end up living in some foreign country without her mother or father. He's already lost everything! He's got nothing more to lose! But you, Will, you still have it all. If something happened to you, I don't know what I'd— You're all I have left. You and Francie. You two mean everything to me! If I didn't have… Please, Will, just _please_. Don't do anything to make me lose you."

And before Will had a chance to comprehend fully what was being said and what was going on, Sydney slumped against the wall and wept uncontrollably.

"Oh, God, Syd, please don't cry," he pleaded, rushing to her side and wiping away her tears with his thumbs. "I'm— I was being stupid. I'm sorry. Of course I'm not gonna do this story. I'm so sorry."

Sydney nestled her nose into his neck and allowed him to draw her closer to his chest. She felt his fingertips press into her back and the warmth of his breath brush against the exposed skin at the base of her neck as he cooed "Shh" over and over again. Closing her eyes, she calmed her erratic heartbeat as she drew Will's scent into her body. He smelled as he always did: one-part menthol after-shave, one-part the cologne his mother bought him every Christmas, and one-part the tangy sour musk he always emitted from stressing over deadlines and driving in bumper-to-bumper traffic. She held onto him for a second longer than was necessary before pulling away and running her thumb under her nose. "I'm so embarrassed," she muttered sheepishly. "I can't believe I started crying at my birthday party."

"You're embarrassed? Hello, I'm the one who made you cry. How do you think I feel right now?" Will mumbled under his breath.

Drying the lower rims of her eyes with the tips of her middle fingers, Sydney chuckled, the laughter jarring her senses. "I'm sorry I broke down like that. It's just been a really emotional…month for me."

"No, don't start saying that you're sorry. If there's anyone who should be sorry, it's me. I don't know what I was thinking about when I thought continuing with this story would be a good idea. I think I had my head stuck in Pulitzer land or something." He reached out and grasped her ice-cold hands. "You mean the world to me, too, Syd, and I'd never do anything to put you, me, Francie, or anyone that we cared about in danger. I mean that."

Sydney freed her hands from Will's and threw her arms around his neck. "Thank you," she whispered with relieved joy. And then because she was a double agent who needed to make sure her cover remained intact, she lightened her tone and asked, "Now what do you say we forget any of this happened and go dance?"

"Okay, I'm all for the forgetting, but dancing? I—"

"Oh, c'mon, it's my birthday," she wheedled, already in the process of struggling to her feet.

"Fine, but only because you're the birthday girl and I'm afraid you're gonna start crying again if I say no," he deadpanned, ducking just in time to avoid an attempted swat at his head.

Once out on the dance floor, Will gave Sydney a twirl before settling his left hand into the small of her back and intertwining the fingers of his right hand with those of her left hand. With an arm wrapped around his neck and her chin resting on his shoulder, Sydney could feel the pulse of their hearts synchronize underneath all their clothes. Not wanting to let go but also knowing that she'd have to eventually, she tightened her hold and murmured, "I love you, Will."

The room began to spin as he digested the unexpected declaration and felt his stomach lurch. You're a masochistic fuck, he condemned himself. But that didn't stop him from grinning like a Cheshire cat as he ran a hand down her hair and catalogued the moment in his mind. "I love you, too, Syd. I love you, too." 


	10. Chapter 9

Please see Prologue for general info and disclaimers.

*~*

__

Five hours earlier…

"You know our brilliant friend, William Douglas Tippin?"

Without looking away from her half-painted toenails, Sydney smiled and called out, "What'd he do now?"

"Well, in all his brilliance, he totally spaced and forgot to pick up your birthday cake during his lunch hour. So _yours truly_ now has to drive to the bakery – in rush hour traffic, mind you – and haul that baby back here before any of the guests start to arrive. I swear, I don't know where the hell his head's been lately," Francie griped as she strode into the newly rearranged living room with a purse in one hand, a faded corduroy jacket in the other, and a pair of sunglasses sitting on top of her head. "If I'd known he was gonna be such a flake, I never would've agreed to let him be a co-host."

"But since he _is_ a co-host, you can always blame him for anything that might go wrong tonight."

"Yeah, I know. And don't think I haven't already started creating a shopping list of all the things I'm gonna blame him for because— Hey, I love that color," she declared, apropos of nothing. "Bright pastels are supposed to be in this spring."

Sydney shook her head and laughed as she recapped her bottle of 'Violet View' nail polish. Francie was the only one she knew who could switch topics and moods so seamlessly without purposely setting out to do so. "Yeah, I know. That was _my_ magazine you read that in."

"Oh, right. Thanks, roomie, for the reading material." Plunking her purse down onto the floor, Francie reached into her back pants pocket and pulled out a very wary looking slip of paper. "Okay, so the food's ready to go…Amy's bringing over every CD she and Patrick own…you and I finished putting up all the decorations and moved all the furniture – thanks for your help on that, by the way…Charlie's gonna bring the alcohol…"

"Charlie's part of the organizing committee now?" Sydney questioned as she batted her eyes innocently and attempted to feign a look of nonchalance on her face.

"Don't," Francie stated flatly with a frown. "I don't have time to deal with that right now. Let's just say he asked if there was anything he could do to help and Will was being absolutely no—"

"You don't need to explain," Sydney chirped. "I think it's…nice that he's helping."

"God, I'm never going to hear the end of this, am I?"

"Probably not."

"Great. _Anyway_, if I can manage to pick up the cake without giving in to my urge to stop by Will's office and beat the crap out of him, then I think we're ready for a party." She stuffed the list back into her pocket with flourish and then arched an eyebrow as she digested the view of Sydney comfortably seated sideways on their couch, her hands fanning her vibrantly painted toenails. "You're not gonna hang around here…right?"

"Yes, Francie," Sydney sighed, suppressing the desire to roll her eyes. "Once my toes are dry, I'm going to head over to campus. I've got a couple library books I need to renew, and, for some reason, they're not letting me do that online. And then I figured that once I'm done with that, I might take a little drive up to Santa Barbara…watch the sun set while I eat a nice leisurely dinner at—"

"Oh, don't you dare, Syd! I swear, if you try to weasel your way out of this party, I _will_ hunt you down, drag you back here, and shove cake down your throat. After everything I've been through the past few days, we _are_ going to have this party, and people _are_ going to have fun."

"Gee, I really can't wait now," Sydney responded dryly. But when she saw her roommate's face cloud over, she quickly amended, "I'm gonna renew those books and then just drive around or whatever until seven. When I'm two blocks from here, I'll call, let the phone ring twice, and then hang up. That'll be my sign to you that you should start keeping an eye out for my headlights. Okay?"

Francie grinned and leaned over the side of the couch to give her friend a hug. "That's perfect. You know, surprise parties are a lot easier when you let the surprisee in on the plans."

"Yeah, imagine that. Now, go on, get outta here and pick up my cake 'cause I'll be very cranky if there isn't any cake at this party." Once the sound of Francie's mirthful laughter faded and Sydney heard their front door click shut, she swung her feet onto the floor and allowed herself to sink into the couch. Well, you've done it, Syd, she told herself as her eyes floated from the ceiling festooned with ribbons of twisted streamers to the shiny, rainbow-colored 'Happy Birthday' sign that hung above the front door. You're twenty-eight now. You've made it through another year.

She'd never really kept track of the passage of years as she'd grown older, but once she'd joined SD-6, each birthday and annual event began to take on a special significance, usually of the not-so-joyous variety. What did a birthday or a Christmas or a New Year's mean to her? It meant she'd survived another year of lies that shouldn't have been told. Another year of tears that shouldn't have been shed. Another year of deaths that shouldn't have occurred.

"And don't forget the lies," she robotically said out loud before realizing that she _hadn't_ forgotten about them. They were, after all, what comprised 90% of her life. But not tonight. Tonight, she was simply going to be Sydney Bristow, newly minted 28-year-old who was going to celebrate the day of her birth with friends who wouldn't mind if she got plastered. Plastered. Sydney grinned at the prospect of using alcohol to help her forget who she really was while also helping her to believe she was who she wanted to be.

The unexpected clanging of her phone pulled her out of her reverie. The ceiling festooned with streamers was still there, as was the birthday sign. Soon, she promised herself as she rose to her feet and hobbled towards the nearest phone.

"Hello?"

"Joey's Pizza?"

__

No, she yearned to scream. It was her birthday. This wasn't what she wanted. She wanted cake and presents and laughter and singing and… Peace. "No, sorry, wrong number," she replied, her voice dull and emotionless. Happy birthday, Sydney. Happy fucking birthday.

____________________

Her car was idling. She was idling. Sometimes she felt like her whole life was idling.

I could leave, she told herself as she watched a dark blue MPV pull into the parking lot and slide into a space three down from her. It certainly wouldn't be the first time. But she hadn't driven all that way only to turn around and leave before speaking with Vaughn. She knew that. Besides, she'd signed up for this. She knew that, too.

As she cut the ignition to the engine and felt her car shudder beneath her, she took a deep breath and steeled herself for their conference. She was going to talk to Vaughn because he'd requested a meet, but that didn't mean she had to pretend to be happy about it.

"Can we get this over with? I have a party I need to make sure I'm not late for." Face hardened, back stiff as a board, and words trimmed with annoyance, Sydney slid open the chain link partition that separated her from Vaughn and awaited his reaction to her impolite request.

He'd been standing hunched over a table, reading what appeared to be a file – she wouldn't have been surprised to learn it was hers – when she'd entered the storage space. Probably because of the lateness in hour, he'd rolled his sleeves up to his elbows, discarded the tie that was normally knotted around his neck, and undone the top two buttons to his shirt. This made him look relaxed, which was the last thing she wanted him to be. She wanted him mad, irritated, essentially anything but affable because it was difficult to launch a defensive if someone else wasn't unleashing an offensive at the same time.

He looked up from the table and observed her aggravated expression while groaning internally. Great, it was going to be one of _those_ meetings. "Okay, you're obviously in a hurry, so I'll cut to the chase. Your father spoke with Devlin this afternoon and told him about the little…discussion the two of you had a couple days ago."

Shaking her head, Sydney snorted in disbelief. "And I wonder why we're not close."

"Look, Sydney, I'm not here to— I know you and your father have issues. That's apparent to everyone. But how could you— How could you think blowing him off like that would be a good idea? Especially after what happened a week and a half ago? It took me two hours – _two _hours, Syd – to convince Devlin that we could still trust you, that you weren't undergoing a nervous breakdown, that you're still a reliable agent. Do you have any idea how—"

"Why do you do this?" The question was a quiet one at first, almost a lament, really. But when she saw Vaughn wrinkle his forehead, his eyes confused, she recognized how she'd caught him off guard and that was all the fuel she needed to attack. "Why do you _always_ do this?" she repeated, her voice now louder and harsher. "Why do you make it sound as if I should be thankful to you for keeping me a double agent and thankful to the Agency for not letting me go? I don't want to do this anymore, Vaughn! Do you not get that? Was I not clear enough when I told you, 'I'm done'? I'm tired of this! It's so easy for all of you, sitting behind your safe, little desks day in and day out, not having to worry about whether the lie you told yesterday or the day before that is going to get you killed. Your name, your character isn't constantly being called into question. But mine is! So don't stand there and act like I should kiss your feet and say, 'Oh, thank you, thank you, Agent Vaughn, for saving my ass and showing me the path to righteousness.' My ass is always on the line because of _you_!"

The words were meant to sting – to wound – as she hurled them at Vaughn, but he just stood his ground and absorbed each barb with a blank stare. When she paused for a breath and to reload, he quietly asked, "Are you done?"

She wasn't, but the question, polite in delivery, almost as if he was asking her for permission to speak, was so controlled and benevolent that it stole all the wind out of her sails. "Yes," she relented, drawing out the s to show her displeasure. "Was there anything else you wanted besides to critique the way I communicate with my father?"

"Actually, yeah." He bent over and rummaged through his briefcase before pulling out a thin, rectangular shaped item sheathed in a teal paper bag. "I wanted to give you this. Happy birthday."

Her anger falling away from her in chunks, Sydney gawked at the present, dumbfounded. "Vaughn, I can't…"

"C'mon, it's your birthday. You deserve stuff like gifts and parties," he stated, taking a step towards her as he continued to hold out the package.

Covering the little space that remained between them, she accepted the present with a burgeoning blush. "You didn't have to."

"I know. I would've wrapped it properly except that I didn't find it until this morning. I was getting a cup of coffee and walked by this store and… Well, go open it and find out what it is."

She clamped down on her lower lip in order to hide the glee that was close to overpowering her and held her breath as she slowly withdrew a hardback book. Turning it over in her hands, her smile expanded until Vaughn almost believed it would take over her face. "The Outsiders," she said in hushed awe.

"It's a first edition," he chimed in, his happiness at her reaction clearly evident in the way in which he rolled onto the tips of his toes and moved his head closer to hers. "When I saw this in the bookstore, I just knew you should have it. I remembered you telling me how this book inspired you when you first read it."

"I was thirteen," Sydney recalled with a chuckle. "Knowing that someone got published when she was only seventeen made me believe that anything was possible. Vaughn, this is…perfect." When she moved her eyes to find his and noticed how near he was to her, she instinctually took a step backwards, destroying their bubble of intimacy in the process. "I, um…"

"I'm glad you like it," he offered, spiking his hair into odd peaks as he ran a hand through it. "So…this, uh, party that you can't be late for. Does it have to do with your birthday?"

"Yeah. Francie and Will are throwing it for me. I'd invite you, but…"

"You don't need your handler there," he dismissed with a wave of his hand.

"Need. Want. They're two different things." As she felt Vaughn's intense gaze upon her face, she ducked her head and pressed the book against her chest. "I should get going. Traffic was getting pretty backed up when I was driving over here."

"Oh, yeah, definitely. I wouldn't want you to be late to your own party."

"Have a fun night."

"You, too. You've earned it, Sydney. Really. I know twenty-seven hasn't been that great of year for you, so I hope twenty-eight's going to be as wonderful as you deserve it to be."

She'd already been on her way to the door when she heard Vaughn's wish for her. Spinning back around, she hurried towards his stunned figure, placed her right hand on his left shoulder, and brushed her lips against his cheek. "Thank you," she breathed as the hair that had been tucked behind her left ear broke free of its restraint and tumbled over his face.

He didn't move as her hair cascaded over his nose, his mouth, his eyes… Inhaling slowly so as to not disturb the moment, Vaughn felt himself transported back to a time of wonder and innocence. It was his childhood and he smelled almonds. Toasted almonds. But by the time the scent registered in his mind as coming from Sydney rather than a particularly vibrant memory, she was gone and the fragrance of almonds had faded away with her.


	11. Chapter 10

Please see Prologue for general info and disclaimers.

*~*

__

Nine hours earlier…

"Hello? Francie? What are you— Wait, Will did what? He— Okay, you're going to have to slow down. I can't—"

Sydney pulled her cell phone away from her ear and smiled politely at the agent sharing the elevator with her as the doors slid open to reveal a stark white room. "Hold on a sec, Francie. I'm picking up a lot of static. Let me get out of this hallway…"

She perceived the pulse of red light before her senses actually discriminated it. With a shiver, she realized that one day – maybe even one day soon – that light would flash around her and she'd have grown so accustomed to it that she wouldn't even be aware of the burst. "How sad," she muttered out loud before raising her hand back up to her ear. "Okay, I'm back. Now what's this about Will and balloons? So he can't— Yes, I— I know that sounds like a big deal, but— Francie, it's a _party_. I'm sure people'll understand if— What? Will's a dork? Sure, I'll agree with that, but what do you want to do about— Well, how about this? I'll take the afternoon off from work and help you decorate the apartment and— I _know_ I'm the guest of honor, but, as the guest of honor, I'm saying it's okay for me to help you. It's not that big—"

As Sydney departed from the white room and stepped into the heart of SD-6's operational center, she found herself almost colliding into Dixon. She grabbed onto one of his forearms, he grabbed onto his cup of coffee, and they grinned into each other's faces. "Francie? I've gotta go. I'm going to help you with the decorations, and that's that. I should be back around one. Bye."

"Everything okay?" Dixon asked, extricating himself from her grip. She looked fine, the happiest he'd seen her in a few weeks as a matter of fact, but he just couldn't seem to shake the need to reassure himself that she was still there, still whole.

"Oh, everything's fine. It's just that Francie's gotten it into her head that she's…" Sydney drew her eyebrows together when she noticed the far-off look in her partner's eyes. "Dixon? You still here?"

His eyes refocused themselves on her smile, a peek of white teeth behind glossy crimson lips. Look at her. She's happy, he attempted to convince himself. The smile. The dimples. The way the corners of her eyes are crinkled together in laughter. But he knew from first-hand experience just how good of an actress she could be. "Yeah, I'm sorry. You were saying?"

"Oh, just that everything's fine. Francie's freaking out a little about this party tonight, but it's nothing I can't handle. Hey, you and Diane are coming, right? You _have_ to come. It should be fun. Or I _hope_ it'll be fun. For Francie's sake."

"I thought the party's supposed to be a…"

"Surprise?" Sydney supplied, leading the two of them to their desks. "Yeah, it still is. Don't ask. Long story."

"Okay." His eyes continued to rake over her every movement and facial expression as she slipped off her jacket, hung it on the back of her chair, and turned on her computer, all the while humming a lively tune. If she was feigning happiness, she was doing a damn good job of it.

"Hey, Dixon, could I— What? You're staring at me again. What is it?"

He blinked and then stretched his mouth into a grin. Sydney wasn't the only accomplished actor within SD-6. "I was just thinking that you're the most radiant twenty-eight year old I've seen today. Happy birthday, Syd."

There was no question that the girlish squeak that escaped from her mouth was genuine. "My first birthday wish," she squealed as she threw her arms around Dixon's neck and felt him plant a warm kiss on her cheek. "Well, I guess Francie would technically be the first, but I'm not going to count her since she woke me up at six complaining about how there's still a lot to be done for the party."

He chuckled and held her at arm's length, this time openly scrutinizing her. "So, how's it feel to be twenty-eight?"

"Much like twenty-seven, unsurprisingly."

"Yeah, you say that now, but wait till you turn forty. That's when the addition of a year to your age really hits you."

She shrugged her shoulders and smiled her agreement as she lowered herself into her seat and pretended to be busy logging into the system. But the minute she was certain that he was no longer looking at her, she trained her downcast eyes in his direction.

He's graying. That was her immediate thought, which was inexplicably followed by Marcus Dixon, SD-6 ID number 30408-12668. But he's so much more than a ten-digit number. He's a father…a husband…

A friend.

"Hey, Dixon? Do mind if I ask you a question?"

His astonishment was evident in the way in which his eyebrows shot upwards, but he masked it expertly. "Not at all. You know you can ask me anything."

"It's kind of personal."

"Do we need to…" He glanced in the direction of the elevator.

"No, I— We should be okay." She pursed her lips together and appeared in conflict before blurting out, in a hushed voice, "Have you ever thought of leaving? For good?"

"Leaving…?" Dixon furrowed the area between his brows and leaned forward in his chair to ask her to elaborate when he noticed her eyes darting all over the room: to her right, the ceiling, Marshall's office, his left shoulder, the floor, the kitchenette, the conference room… "Oh. Well, yeah, sure, I guess. I think we all have at one time or another. After a bad day. Or a worse than bad day."

"But you'd never actually do it?"

His response was swift and uncompromising. "No."

"Why not? I mean, don't you ever get tired of…things? Of all the birthdays and anniversaries and recitals and parent-teacher conferences you're never there for? Don't you ever wish you could just start over? Be someone – _anyone_ – who doesn't have to do…_this_?"

He sympathized with the desperation he saw creeping into her eyes and reached out to take one of her hands in his. "Of course I have, but… People say policemen and firemen are heroes because they spend their days keeping people safe and saving their lives. Well, we do the same things, Syd, except that we don't get to go home and bask in the glow of our accomplishments. Day in and day out, we do what we do not for the external validation, but because someone has to and we're that someone. Yes, it's hard and, yes, sometimes you just want to throw in the towel, but you don't and I don't and no one else here does because we know what the big picture is and we know that what we're doing is invaluable to society."

Sydney pulled her hand away and pretended to use it to rub her forehead in confusion when what she was really experiencing was heartbreak. Up until that moment, she'd never truly grasped how much SD-6 had indoctrinated Dixon with their supposed 'ideals.' What would he think if he knew the truth, she asked herself bitterly. He doesn't deserve this. None of us do. "You don't understand," she mumbled, her eyes wandering everywhere except where she knew his would be.

But I do, he wanted to tell her. I know what it's like to wake in the middle of the night, a strangled cry still lodged in your throat as your body's drenched in your own sweat. I know what it's like to roll over in bed, squeeze your eyes shut, and pray that sleep will silence the muffled shouts in your head. I know what it's like to live a life that doesn't feel like your own. But…

Dixon propped his elbows on top of his desk and rested his head in the palms of his hands, the expression on his face the epitome of wisdom. "Last weekend, I took the kids to a movie. It was one of those spy thrillers all the studios are busy churning out for kids to watch. About two-thirds of the way through, there's a car chase that ends with a spectacular crash. Nothing overly violent, just some special effects and a loud bang that gave everyone in the theater a nice jolt. Everyone, that is, except me. It wasn't that the crash didn't surprise me like it did everyone else. It's just that… People like us, Syd? We've been robbed of that luxury. I'm not going to lie about that. I'm not going to sit here and gloss over it because it's true. What we do – what we've done – it's changed us. Made us harder, less perceptible to all things unknown, even things as innocuous as a car crash in a movie. I'm never going to get to experience that thrill the kids get from thunder or the boom of fireworks. But I gladly give that up because everything we do ensures me that neither of them is going to have to. _That's_ why, no matter how hard things get sometimes, I'd never leave."

With those words, Dixon's esteem soared as Sydney's fell.

He'd never before tried to verbalize some of the reasons behind his involvement with SD-6 – nor had he ever been asked to – and he was pleased to discover that it was his love for and his desire to protect his children that motivated his actions. He knew there wasn't anything he wouldn't do for them or his wife, but there were times when he

And that was when he noticed Sydney turn her head and wipe away a tear that had fallen down her cheek.

He dropped his hands onto his desk with a thump and groaned. "Syd, I'm— I'm sorry. I didn't mean to—"

"You don't have to apologize for being a good father," she replied through gritted teeth.

"I wasn't— Jack's a good father, too. I know nothing means more to him than protecting you."

"Really? Well, that's funny because I know you'd die before allowing one of your kids to be recruited, and that's the kind of reaction I'd expect any decent father to have. But _my_ dad, he—"

"He's told you that he didn't know, Syd. And you know what it can be like around here. You know it's not inconceivable for the right hand not to know what the left hand's doing."

"He could have found a way," she whispered as she compulsively scratched away a patch of ectoderm on her left arm. "He _should_ have found a way."

Dixon sighed and averted his eyes to the floor as Sydney did the same. It's her birthday; we should be celebrating, he bemoaned in his head. How did we get here of all places? Six years of being partners had taught him when he should let certain subjects drop, but because he felt guilty – For what? _Being_ a good father? _Thinking_ he was a good father? – Dixon took a deep breath and made one last attempt to reason with his partner. "Sydney…"

"Please don't" was her quiet yet forceful response.

So he relented and waited for her to make the next move, as he knew she would after taking a few seconds to pull herself together. Perhaps she'd laugh and say she was being silly. Or she might toss a pen at his head and playfully tease him for making her envious of his children. Regardless of whatever she chose to do, he knew the atmosphere around their workspace would rapidly change from one of misery to merriment because Sydney was, if nothing else, a master at applying emotional Band-Aids.

What he'd never anticipated her to do, however, was look off into the distance and gesture towards Sloane's office with her head. "He's back?"

"What? Oh, yeah, he, um, he came in around eight. Went straight to his office and closed the door."

"Have you talked to him?"

"No. I think he's waiting to address everyone at the 10:30 meeting." Dixon watched as she nodded her head absently. The concern etched across her face felt normal and almost right to him, but there was something in her eyes that caught his attention. What is that, he asked himself. Fear? "Have you, uh…talked to him…since…?"

"No," she croaked, the word barely making it out of her throat. _Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to _"I came late, sat in the back, left the first chance I got," she relayed with an emotionless voice, one often associated with shock. "I just didn't want to…" _We will all miss this angel who walked amongst us for far too little time, but we should find comfort in knowing that God has_

"Sydney?" For the second time in less than fifteen minutes, Dixon reached out for one of her hands. The frigid dampness that greeted his touch alarmed him. "Syd, are you okay?"

And then, as quickly as he knew she could alter the ambience of a situation, she broke out into a relaxed smile and giggled. "God, wow, I am suffering from some serious caffeine deprivation," she joked, still laughing. "I think I'm gonna go get some coffee before I…zone off again. Want a refill?"

"No, I'm good. Thanks."

"Okay. I'll be right back."

As she brushed past him on her way to the kitchenette, Dixon grabbed a hold of one of her wrists, which caused her to look over her shoulder in apprehension. "Are we okay, Syd?"

"Yes. Of course." Her smile deepened as she looked him directly in the eyes. "And you and Diane _are_ coming tonight, right?"

"Definitely. We wouldn't miss it."

Her smile remained splashed across her face until she entered the deserted kitchenette and heard the revolving door swing shut behind her. Grabbing onto the edge of the countertop with both of her hands, she exhaled unevenly and allowed her shoulders as well as her lips to slump. "Get a grip, Bristow," she chastised under her breath. "You're losing it."

When she considered herself to be sufficiently steadied, she poured a cup of coffee, straightened her back, and spun around to return to her desk. But instead of looking out into an empty room, she found herself face-to-face with Sloane.

"Hello, Sydney."

She felt the paper walls of the cup she was holding begin to buckle under the pressure of her fingers as she stumbled backward into the counter and gasped. In her three-inch heel pumps, she had a height advantage over Sloane, but it seemed like he was everywhere with his grinning eyes and grinning lips and grinning forehead wrinkles. He was blocking her one path to the door and the only way for her to bypass him would be to shove him aside. But her feet had morphed into blocks of ice and she found that all she could do was stare back at him like a deer caught in a pair of headlights.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to startle you," Sloane told her as he placed a fatherly hand on her shoulder. "I thought you heard me come in."

"N-no, I—" Every atom within her was screaming at Sloane to move away, to remove the weight of his hand from her body. She tried to swallow but ended up only succeeding in choking on a capsule of air. As she gulped for a breath, she managed to get out, "Wel-welcome back. How are you doing?"

"Fine," he replied, watching her actions with curiosity. "It's good to be back."

"Yes," she wheezed, still slightly winded, "distractions are good sometimes."

He nodded, his eyes never moving away from her face as he noticed the way in which she scooted herself just beyond his reach. "I never would have agreed to that leave of absence if the Alliance hadn't insisted upon it, but I suppose I should admit that the time alone did me some good. McCullough informed me that you took some time off as well while I was gone."

Sydney snapped to attention at what she perceived to be a threat. "No, I— It was just two and a half days. I had this exam for school I needed to study for and then—"

"It's all right," Sloane assured her, sounding every bit the part of a patient parent who'd had his sleep disrupted by a young child being haunted by the monsters under her bed. "I'm glad you took whatever time you needed for yourself. You know, we have yet to discuss what—"

"That's okay," she cried as a deterrent, conscious of which subject he was attempting to broach. Shut up. _Please_ shut up, she beseeched in her head. "There's nothing to discuss. I'm fine."

He appeared unconvinced as he narrowed his eyes, but nonetheless demurred. "If you're certain."

"Yes. I'm—" She shook her head in frustration and feebly repeated, "I'm fine."

"If you'd ever like to—"

"No, that won't be necessary." Shut. Up. Please. "I do have a favor to ask of you, though. It's my birthday today and I was kind of hoping to take the afternoon off."

"Of course." If it had been possible for his smile to grow any larger, she would have sworn that it did just that as he moved towards her, his arms extended to enfold her into a hug. "Doesn't it seem like only yesterday that you came to join us here?"

Her arms remained glued to her sides as she felt him pull her towards him. She tried to wait for him to break the embrace but when the memories (_"You look tired, Sydney. Is my husband working you too hard?"_) and the betrayals (_"There is only one response to a virus and that response is containment. **You** put us in a compromised situation…"_) came flooding down upon her, she pulled away, any aroused suspicions be damned. 

"I need to get back to my desk," she offered as an excuse. "This coffee's for Dixon and I don't want it to get cold."

"Certainly." He stepped aside and allowed her to pass, which she gratefully did.

__

"You never think things through, Sydney. That's always been your problem."

Her father's reprimand was the last thing she wanted to remember then. Not then, not as she tossed the cup of coffee – whose sides were struggling to maintain their shape after her rough treatment of them – into the first trashcan she passed after leaving the kitchenette. But his words plagued her mind and meshed together with the other aspects of her life she'd rather forget.

__

"You never think things through, Sydney. That's always been your problem."

"I tried to keep you from this. I want you to know that."

"Sydney, you have no perspective on who that man is! You're as lost now as I was years ago!"

"When you look back…family, friends…that's what matters. Work, your job…it won't seem that important."

"You could be anywhere, doing anything…which is the crux of the issue. Could I live like this, not knowing where or why…when?"

The voices refused to cease and she knew of only one way to get them to do so.


	12. Chapter 11

****

Notes: Thanks to Mai for assuming beta duties halfway through. Thanks to all of you who, despite my incredibly crappy update skills, are still sticking with this fic. And because I'm a fusser by nature, it may appear as if some chapters have been re-uploaded or deleted. That's not the case, though. All old chapters are still there…they've just been…fussed with. :) Hope you enjoy these next few chapters.

Please see Prologue for general info and disclaimers.

*~*

__

Forty-six hours earlier…

You're a few years overdue / I spent them waiting here for you / Now your charity's refused / I can name a penance for abuse / Twenty-four years overdue / What kind of role model are you? / Very least learn not

Music blaring into her ears, Sydney's head jerked upward as a shadow fell across her notebook.

She'd been trained to react at a moment's notice, to always expect the unexpected, but she had to admit that during that brief second in which her indistinct handwriting had fallen under a dark cloud, she'd been caught off guard. Instead of plotting her escape or preparing her limbs to strike out at the first sign of aggression, she'd raised her head ruminating about the misogyny of ship life and whether she'd escape mediocrity. If there was ever a time she should have died, that should have been it.

As she looked into the face of the figure that was blotting out her sunlight and waited for her eyes to focus, she realized the gravity of her situation. Her grip tightened around her pen – thrust at a specific angle into the jugular, the tip made for an effective murder weapon – and she felt the increased release of adrenaline course through her system. Did she dare attack now? While exposed, unprotected, in the middle of campus?

Her fingertips were white and all of her senses were working on overdrive when the position of the sun shifted and exposed a familiar frown.

"Dad," Sydney murmured, dropping the pen onto her notebook and slipping off her headphones. "You scared me."

If Jack noticed the sense of relief that flowed forth from her words, it didn't register on his face as he fixed her with a disapproving glare and asked, "What do you think you're doing?"

Unfazed by his bitter tone, she waved a hand over the papers spread out in front of her. "Cramming. I've got a paper due in my 19th Century English Lit class tomorrow and need to finish reading the…" She paused to flip through a battered book sitting by her side and winced at the number of pages she had left to read. "The last 200 pages of Moby Dick before I can start writing. I'm so screwed."

Jack was apparently not in the mood to commiserate with his daughter's academic woes, however, for his glare only intensified and his tone only grew more bitter. "I'm not playing, Sydney."

"Well, neither am I." She quirked an eyebrow and held up her copy of _Moby Dick_ to emphasize her point. "I really _do_ need to finish reading this."

"And I'm talking about yesterday." His hands came crashing down upon the top of the picnic table where she was sitting as he leaned towards her, his words low and menacing. "What did you think you were doing _yesterday_?"

Sydney sighed and looked over his left shoulder towards a trio of students who were engaged in a friendly game of Frisbee. They were laughing and smiling and being everything she wished for herself. "It was _one_ day, Dad. All I took was one day off from work. I don't think—"

"Yes, it was just one day," he hissed, "but when you tack that on to the day and a half you took last week—"

"God, I _needed_ yesterday off, okay? If you're worried about Sloane, I'll explain everything to him when he gets back. I'm sure he won't—"

"What? Be suspicious?" Jack sniped in return. "The minute he's gone for a week, you suddenly disappear yourself for two and a half days. Yes, that's not going to catch his attention at all."

Sydney ground her molars together as she felt a twinge in her stomach. What right did he— How could he— The pressure from her clenched jaws shot a throbbing pain up to her temples. It took every bit of restraint within her to refrain from grabbing his arms and pulling them out from under him. If he was going to insist on hurting her, then she wanted to hurt him back. "Sloane will understand," she managed to say with a modicum amount of cordiality.

"No, I can assure you that he won't. Your…days off have piqued McCullough's interest. I guarantee you that that'll be one of the first things he'll discuss with Sloane upon his return."

"I can handle both of them," she mumbled, irritated.

"Sydney…" Jack exhaled loudly and straightened his back as he crossed his arms, the disappointment in his countenance clear for all to see. "I really don't understand you sometimes. I know you know better than this."

The way in which his words belittled her stung her more than a slap across the face would have. She could see the failure that he saw her as in his eyes. She could almost hear his subconscious pondering how she could possibly be his daughter. But instead of feeling hurt or ashamed as she had done in the past during similar situations, she found herself growing cold and embittered. This time was going to be different. She would make sure of it.

Oblivious of his daughter's inner turmoil, Jack persisted with his admonitions. "You never think things through, Sydney. That's always been your problem," he stated, his tone wary and tinged with frustration. "Ever since you were a child, you've allowed your emotions to dictate your actions. If you wanted something, you'd go after it, regardless of the consequences."

"What are you—"

"Are you denying this?" he challenged in disbelief. "This is the way you've _always_ been. This is what it was like when you were nine and suddenly _had_ to learn how to play the flute. And when you were fourteen and _needed_ those horseback riding lessons. _And_ when you decided to join SD-6."

"I thought SD-6 was part of the CIA," she retorted with a wobbly voice. "I thought I was doing something good."

"Yes, that's what you _thought_, but you were wrong. If you'd taken some time – a minute, a _second_ – you might have realized what was going on, how suspicious everything was. But you didn't. You leapt at the opportunity without—"

"I didn't know!" Her emotions – the very things Jack was blaming for having led her down the wrong paths in her life – had gained control of her mind as she shot up to her feet, her hands balled up into fists. "But _you_ did, and you didn't do a damn thing to stop me!"

"Lower your voice," Jack growled, his eyes automatically scanning the surrounding areas to see if Sydney's outburst had garnered any unwanted attention.

"No, I don't think I will," she snapped as she locked her gaze onto his weary face, every crease carrying behind it a story of a life that should have been but never materialized.

As a child, she'd spent hours kneeling and staring out the front window of the house she and her father had shared with a constantly changing nanny, desperate to catch a glimpse of that face, desperate to make her home a real home, but then always – _always_ – tumbling sideways onto the couch when her knees grew tired and the sun disappeared behind the horizon. Do it, a voice in her head ordered. Get angry. _Be_ angry.

"How dare you feel like you have a right to stand there and lecture me about how I've been irresponsible and inattentive to details when it comes to SD-6?" she demanded. " I believed what I was told and I know I'm not the only one like that. I was recruited _seven_ years ago, Dad, and you never once came to me and said, 'There's something you need to know.' If I've been blind or impetuous, that's because _you_ allowed me to be."

"I've already told you," he asserted. "Your recruitment occurred without my knowledge. By the time I learned of your involvement with SD-6, you had already made your presence known within the organization. There was nothing I could have told you that wouldn't have tipped Sloane off."

"Not to mention the risk it would have put you in." When she saw him open his mouth to protest, she cut him off with a firm shake of her head, her eyes searing through his. "Don't try to deny it because you've repeatedly made it clear to me in so many words that I wasn't worth the risk to your cover as a double agent."

"Sydney, I—"

"Don't bother. You've never hidden your motivations from me."

"I didn't know you'd been recruited," he insisted.

"You didn't know. You weren't there," she mocked, her mouth twisting up into a derisive smirk. "That's been a pretty effective mantra for you through the years, hasn't it? But do you know why it's been so effective? It's because I let it be. You trampled over me so many times that I lost track of the number by the time I reached sixteen. Remember when I turned sixteen? Oh, wait, that's right, you wouldn't remember because you weren't there. What was it? A phone call too early in the morning that carried an insincere apology? Or was that when I turned eighteen? I don't know. Everything begins to blur after awhile."

At that moment, with her eyes darker than he'd ever since them before and yet also hauntingly vacant, Jack shuddered and realized his daughter had become the one person he'd always wanted her to avoid: himself.

Despite her beliefs to the contrary, he _did_ remember her sixteen birthday. He'd been in Dublin. California. A mere half-hour car ride to the nearest airport and then a 55-minute flight back down to Los Angeles. He'd wanted to make it home in time for dinner; he'd wanted to surprise and embarrass Sydney with foolish talk about how important a girl's 'Sweet Sixteen' is. But he hadn't gone home and he hadn't surprised his daughter because he'd been bound and gagged in a plush five-star hotel just off downtown Dublin, his attempt to infiltrate FTL's Bay Area unit a dismal failure. By the time he had returned home – 22 stitches on the right side of his head from where a man with a fondness for brass knuckles had attempted to coerce information from him – Sydney had rushed towards him, still eager and willing to forgive his absence.

She'd seen his swollen left eye, touched the bandaged gash by the side of his mouth, and asked if he was okay. He'd brushed her away, snarled at her to stop asking so many questions, and stalked to his room, slamming the door shut behind him. He'd wanted to hug her – remind himself of why he was still doing what he was doing – but knew he couldn't. Not if he wanted her to live. Not if he wanted to make sure she wouldn't grow up to be him. 

Refocusing upon the present, Jack's heart sank at the revelation of his failure. Yet another failure. He could apologize now for his past mistakes. He could ask her to sit down and allow him to explain himself. But old habits were hard to break and Jack found himself looking down at her with an expression of contempt. "How dare you—"

"How dare I?" Sydney spat as words such as 'reconciliation' and 'absolution' disappeared from her vocabulary. "How about because I'm tired of having a father only when it's convenient for you? Or because I'm not going to let you swoop in anymore and pretend to save the day by telling me I've been foolish? I've let you do that more times than anyone else in her right mind would've because I wanted a father so badly. Do you know that? Do you know that all I've wanted all these years was someone to love me and protect me and…" 

Her voice faltered for a moment as she lifted her right arm and rubbed the back of her neck with her hand. This wasn't right. Despite everything, he was still her father and didn't deserve to be spoken to this way. But more than two decades worth of memories – painful, miserable memories – were flooding her mind and holding her emotions with a vise-like grip. They were squeezing them, twisting them until all she could do was open her mouth and say, cold and heartless, "But you couldn't – or wouldn't – do that and I kept making excuses for you, telling myself that you were busy, that you had better things to do than spend time with me, that I was asking for too much, that I— But you know what? I don't care anymore. I don't care if I have a father. I'm tired of constantly convincing myself that this sham of a relationship we pretend to have is real. It's not, it never has been, and it never will be. So, please, just leave me alone. The games end here. I'm putting a stop to them and I don't want anything more to do with you."

Without waiting for a response, Sydney bent down and scooped her materials into her arms. She felt free. For the first time in years, she actually felt something akin to freedom. But, at the same time, she also couldn't shake herself of the emptiness that was pressing down upon her.

Except for a slight flutter of his eyelashes, Jack remained motionless as he watched Sydney prepare to leave him. _She_ was going to leave _him_. With a low voice that he'd meant to sound melancholic but instead came out superior, he declared, "I'm not perfect, Sydney, but neither are you."

With that proclamation, the last vestiges of respect she had been harboring for him crumpled before her. As she swallowed her desire to lash out at him once more, she simply raised her head and stated, "No, I'm not. But _I've_ never used that as an excuse for who I am or what I do."

*~*

__

A/N: Lyrics at beginning of chapter are from "Overdue" by The Get Up Kids.


	13. Chapter 12

Please see Prologue for general info and disclaimers.

*~*

__

One day earlier…

With her work uniform tucked securely under her left armpit, Francie paused in front of her apartment door to rifle through the mail she had just retrieved. There was a Victoria's Secret catalogue (which produced a mischievous twinkle in her eyes when she saw they were having a sale on merrywidows), a postcard from her dentist reminding her that it'd been six months since her last cleaning (and, in the process, reminding her that it was time to start flossing again), her Visa bill (which made her grimace – why had that shopping spree two weeks ago seemed like such a good idea then?), and a card housed in a red envelope, Sydney's name and address neatly typed out on a computer label.

Flipping the card around and running her thumb over the raised insignia of the manufacturer's name, Francie immediately noticed there was no return address on either the front or back of the envelope.

Interesting.

The corners of her lips shot upwards as she made a mental note to tease Sydney about who her secret admirer might be when she saw her next. When _will_ I see her next, she asked herself as she eased her key into the main lock on the front door.

After Sydney's antics from the previous week, she highly doubted the bank would be sending her on an overnight trip any time soon, but Sydney's recent lack of travels hadn't increased the amount of time she'd been spending at the apartment. As a matter of fact, Francie couldn't recall whether she'd actually seen her roommate in the past few days. Sure their schedules sometimes appeared to be polar opposites of each other's, but this was bordering on the ridiculous.

With these thoughts running through her head, Francie let herself into the apartment and then stopped dead in her tracks. There was Sydney, sprawled out on the couch, her attention obviously torn between the paperback book in her hands and whatever images where flashing across the TV screen.

Hearing the front door open, Sydney looked up and greeted her roommate with a warm smile. "Hey. You left early this morning."

"Oh, yeah, I, uh… I had…" Francie fumbled with her words as she also fumbled with shutting the door behind her. What the hell was Sydney doing home in the middle of a weekday? "I had to work a breakfast at the convention center."

"How'd that go?"

"F-fine." She hung her uniform on the outer knob of their front hall closet and glanced around the room for a clock before remembering the watch encircling her left wrist. "Syd, it's—"

"Hey, this is a _fantastic_ book," Sydney began at the same time. "Do you know that?"

Squinting at the book cover and recognizing it as one she'd read in an American History class her junior year as an undergrad, Francie nodded and said, in bemusement, "Yeah, it's my book."

"I mean, I thought I knew everything there was to know about the Underground Railroad," she continued, almost as if she was oblivious of Francie's comment, "but I apparently didn't know half of what went on. The extent of that railroad is just amazing. Do you know they had tunnels leading from outhouses and dried up water wells?"

With her voice exhibiting a bit more annoyance than she'd meant it to, Francie reiterated, "Yeah, it's _my_ book," as she stared at Sydney in puzzlement.

Catching the edge in her friend's tone, Sydney looked down at the book in her hands and laughed, a tinge of pink slowly creeping up the length of her cheekbones. "Oh, right. I hope you don't mind I borrowed it. It's just that I woke up this morning desperate to read something that had absolutely _nothing_ to do with either English Literature or banking."

"Syd, it's fine," Francie backtracked as she crossed the room and plopped herself down on their coffee table so that she now sat directly opposite Sydney's face. "You know you can borrow whatever you want from my room whenever you want, but... It's 11:33."

"I know."

The indifference in Sydney's voice caused all desires Francie had had to be subtle and tactful to fly out the window. "Okay, it's 11:33 on a _Monday_. Not that I don't love seeing you – because you know I do – but what are you doing here? In your pajamas?" she added when she finally took notice of her roommate's farm animal print PJs. "Did you quit your job? And school? Again?"

Even though she knew the concern in Francie's voice was real and entirely warranted, Sydney couldn't hold back the peals of laughter that erupted from her chest.

"Syd, c'mon, I'm being serious." There was no ignoring the annoyance creeping into Francie's voice.

"I know, I'm sorry, it's just that—" Sydney gasped between giggles. "Okay, let me start over. My class was canceled today because the professor's in Italy for a conference or something, and I decided to call in sick and take a mental health day from work."

"But you've never taken a mental health day before."

"I know. So doesn't it seem like I'm definitely due for one?"

Francie inspected her roommate's cheerful face – which was a shock to see in and of itself – with suspicion before cautiously asking, "So…you're okay? You're not flipping out like you did last week?"

"I didn't flip— All right, I might have flipped out a little last week, but I'm fine now. Really."

Still unconvinced, Francie narrowed her eyes and lifted an eyebrow as if she was Jessica Fletcher on yet another search for a Cape Cod murderer, which was almost enough to send Sydney into another fit of laughter. After a few seconds had passed and Francie was content with what she'd found – an honest-to-God happy Sydney – she smiled and asked, "So, really, you're good? Because if you're not, we could—"

"I'm _fine_."

"Does this mean we can…we can talk about me then?"

Tossing the fleece blanket she'd been wrapped in off her body, Sydney sat up straight on the couch and leaned forward with interest. "Why, Francine Calfo, _is_ there something about you that needs to be discussed?"

Her stomach the sudden playground for a million butterflies, Francie wrung her hands in embarrassment and felt her cheeks begin to burn. "I…I bumped into Charlie this morning."

"Oh my God," Sydney murmured, ready to embrace her best friend with a comforting hug if that was what she needed. "Are you okay? How did it go?"

"I…don't know. I mean, I think it went well. No, I— I _know_ it went well."

"How did it happen? Was he at the breakfast you had to work?"

"What? No. He wasn't at the breakfast. He was, um…" Francie paused to lick her lips, a lightheaded giddiness taking control of her mind. "After I was done working, I decided to stop by campus and pick up that paper I wrote for my International Finance class. But I wanted to grab a cup of coffee first and stopped by that café near the North entrance. And as I was going in, Charlie was coming out."

"Oh my God," Sydney exhaled again, a hand flying up to cover her mouth.

"I know. That was pretty much my reaction."

"What did Charlie do when he saw you?"

"Kind of stared at me, which was basically what I was doing to him, so…"

When she saw Francie's head drop, Sydney pulled herself up from the couch and took a seat beside her on the coffee table as she draped an arm across her shoulders. "You can't expect—"

"I wasn't angry with him," Francie interrupted, lifting her head. "That's the thing: I wasn't angry. I knew I should have been, that I had every right to be, but I wasn't. And believe me when I say I was trying _really_ hard to be mad. But when I looked at him and he looked at me, I just… I realized just how much I've missed him, Syd. Being there with him like that, it was…it was _familiar_, and that felt really nice."

"Fran," Sydney began, forcing her tone to remain nonchalant, "you and Charlie, you guys haven't…"

"What?"

"Gotten back together, have you?"

"Oh, God, no," Francie laughed. "I may be sentimental right now, but I'm not stupid. At least not yet. He went back into the café with me and we had some coffee and talked and…I'm embarrassed to admit this, but it felt good listening to what he's been up to and me telling him what my plans are for the summer. It was almost as if nothing had happened, that we were still…together."

"Oh, Fran, I…"

"I know, you don't know what to say; I'd be the same way if I was in your shoes right now. This just doesn't make any sense. And you want to hear the best part? He asked me out on a date."

This time Sydney didn't even attempt to hide her O-shaped mouth of surprise behind a hand. "Wow. This just keeps getting better by the second."

"Tell me about it. And the saddest part? I actually thought about saying yes. For a couple seconds after he asked what I thought about going out to dinner with him, I actually considered forgetting how he cheated on me, how he lied to me, how he made me feel like the stupidest person on the face of the Earth."

"But?" Sydney quietly prompted, knowing there was a 'but' on the tip of Francie's tongue.

"But I told him no, I couldn't do it and he said he understood and we hugged and I drove back here and… I wish I'd said yes. I really, really wish I'd said yes, Syd. I need to get my head checked, don't I?"

Chuckling as she pulled Francie closer to her with a sideways hug, Sydney asked, "Can I offer a suggestion, for what it's worth?"

"Of course."

"I think you should talk to him – _on the phone_ – and try to work through what happened. And I think you should also invite him to the surprise birthday party you and Will are throwing for me next week."

"Wait, you know about that?" Francie pulled away from Sydney's embrace and faced her with an expression that was a mixture of horror, fear, and guilt. Lots of guilt.

"Fran, you and Will have got to be two of the worst liars alive. The way you guys would shush each other whenever I walked into the room? I pretty much figured you were either planning a party for me or were having an affair. And, you know, there are just some places my mind refuses to go."

Wincing and snickering at the thought of having an affair with Will, Francie buried her fiery face into Sydney's shoulder. "Are you are okay with the party? We know you hate surprise parties, but you've been so depressed lately that we thought a bunch of people screaming surprise at you might cheer you up."

"It's fine. I'm actually really touched you guys have gone to the trouble. And, hey, it'll provide you the perfect opportunity to hang out with Charlie in a less intimate setting. And even though the last time we talked I told him that I would kill him if he didn't tell you about his affair, you can tell him that you're not inviting him because you want to see him, but because I do."

Both girls dissolved into a mass of giggles. "Somehow I think he'll see right through that, but thanks," Francie managed to say moments later despite her aching cheek muscles. "You really think I should do it? Invite him to the party?"

"Sure. Will and I will be there to kick his ass if he gets out of line."

"You two are impossible," Francie commented with a friendly roll of her eyes while she tucked the sides of her hair behind her ears and planted her feet to the ground in order to push herself upwards. "I'm gonna have to think about this party thing. I… I don't know." As she began to shuffle her way to her room, her mind lost in a fog of confusion, she remembered the red envelope she was still holding in her hands. "Oh, hey, Syd, mail call," she announced as she tossed her the card. "You have a secret admirer you'd like to tell me about?"

"What?" Sydney looked down at the envelope sitting in her lap and drew her eyebrows together. It was bright, it appeared cheery, and it scared her more than she knew she could admit to Francie. "Oh, I'm sure it's just a birthday card from my…insurance agent or something."

"Well, if it is, then I've got to switch carriers because my agent not only never remembers my birthday, but she also still insists that my first name is really Francesca. Hey, do you have any plans for lunch? That new Thai place opened up downtown. Maybe we should go check that out and…"

Shutting out the sound of Francie's voice, which was fading by the second as she walked into her bedroom, Sydney stared at the envelope and hesitated for a second before finally slipping her right index finger under the back flap to tear it open. Housed inside was a standard, run-of-the-mill birthday card: an array of multicolored balloons crowding the front cover with the words 'Happy Birthday' prominently displayed in the middle in red metallic, script print. Opening the card, Sydney's breath caught in her throat as she read: _Happy 28th birthday, Syd. Put a candle in the window._

Both the familiar handwriting and phrase triggered a million memories.

Put a candle in the window…Put a candle in the window…

__

Put a candle in the window, 'cause I feel I've got to move. Though I'm going, going, I'll be coming home soon. Long as I can see the light…

"What is it with you and this band? I'm beginning to think I should be jealous of four middle-aged, white men."

Dressed merely in a navy blue towel, the young woman exited the bathroom and padded across the adjoining bedroom. First to the stereo to lower the volume, and then to the man sitting on the bed, who was pulling on a pair of sweat shorts. Crawling onto the bed, she snuggled up against his bare back and wrapped her arms around the front of his neck, strands of her damp brown hair suctioning onto his skin. He smiled as he felt her rest her chin against his right shoulder and reached up to run a hand over her left arm.

"They're classic rock," he replied in response to her question. "How can you help but love them?"

"Mmm," she murmured unintelligibly as she nuzzled his neck and planted a kiss behind his ear. "You going for a run?"

"Yeah. I want to take advantage of this cooling trend while I can. You coming into work today?"

"Yeah, but not until after lunch. I have two midterms this morning."

"What?" He untangled himself from her arms and turned around so he could face her. "Why didn't you tell me that last night? You should have been studying instead of hanging out with me."

"It's not a big deal," she protested with a carefree laugh. "I'm ready for the tests. And, for the record, I **liked** hanging out with you last night."

"You should have been studying," he insisted.

"It's really not that big of a deal."

"Yes, it is. You're letting yourself— You can't—" He cut himself off and heaved a sigh as he ran a hand through his hair and looked away. She didn't understand; he was aware of that, always had been. "Just don't forget that school's important, okay?"

"Of course I won't. Don't be silly." She watched him get off the bed, the springs creaking loudly from the removal of his weight, and reach for a T-shirt that had been draped over the back of his desk chair. While he was obviously unhappy with the news she'd blown off studying to see him instead, all she could see was the glorious man who'd walked into her life and made it brighter, more meaningful.

"I've got to leave for this run now or else I'm going to be late for work. You'll be okay letting yourself out?" His tone was as abrupt as his imminent departure.

"Yeah. Not a problem."

"Okay. I'll see you later then."

He was back by her side with only two long strides and planted a kiss on her forehead. And as she watched him leave, she mumbled, "I think I'm falling in love with you."

But he never responded or reentered the room, so she shrugged and assumed he hadn't heard. Probably just as well, she thought to herself as she disappeared back into the bathroom to dry her hair.

He, however, **had** heard her and stood pressed against the wall adjacent to his bedroom door, his body trembling. Don't, he screamed in his head. Don't let yourself do that.

But he knew it was happening and he knew it was happening to both of them.

"Syd? Are you still out there?" Francie peeked back into the living room to see Sydney lost in thought, the birthday card clasped in her right hand. "Earth to Syd…"

"What?" Instinctually sliding the card behind her back, Sydney withdrew from her reverie to see Francie's gaze firmly affixed on the hand she'd moved behind her. "I, uh…"

"Are you trying to hide something from me?" Francie asked with an arched eyebrow.

"No, of course not. I'm just— You— You caught me off guard, that's all."

"And you're hiding your card behind your back because…?"

"You scared me." The lie dribbled off her tongue as if it was butter and Sydney flashed a bright smile with the hopes of putting an end to Francie's line of questioning.

"So the card's not from a secret admirer?"

"Nope. My insurance agent, like I said it would be."

"Man, I really _do_ need to change carriers. Anyway, what's your status for lunch? Wanna check out that Thai place, or do you think that'd be bad form since you're supposed to be home sick?"

"Yeah, I should probably stay in."

"Okay. I'm sure there's something here I can whip together into a meal…"

As Francie went off to the kitchen and busied herself with preparing lunch, Sydney glanced down at the card and felt the beating of her heart accelerate.

Put a candle in the window…Put a candle in the window…

She understood that – squeezed her eyes shut at the relief it brought her – but she wasn't sure _who_ was supposed to put that candle in the window. Her or someone else?

*~*

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A/N: Lyrics in chapter are from "Long as I Can See the Light" by Creedence Clearwater Revival.


	14. Chapter 13

Please see Prologue for general info and disclaimers.

*~*

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Two and a half days earlier…

It began as a jog.

Oh, who was she kidding? From the moment Sydney had stepped onto the sidewalk in front of her apartment building, she'd been running. Running hard.

At first she'd been fleeing from Anna. Even though she hadn't dared to look over her shoulder, she could see Anna clearly in her mind: her face contorted into an expression of intense glee, her braided black hair whipping from side to side as she gained on her with every street corner she turned.

But then as quickly as she had materialized, Anna disappeared and a score of men from SD-6's Security Section replaced her. They didn't care Sydney's legs were beginning to ache or that her throat was parched. They only kept their eyes – which were hidden behind black sunglasses, of course – trained on her figure as they galloped after her, their unique gait giving away the guns that were bumping against the sides of their bodies underneath their suit jackets.

They gave her quite a chase before morphing into Sloane, and then her father, and then, a bit later, Vaughn, Will, and Francie, each getting their own turn to castigate her for all the wrongs she'd committed against them.

By the time the figure pursuing her had become Emily – who hadn't chased her like the others, but merely stood her ground and stared after her with repentant eyes – Sydney wasn't quite sure whether or not she still had a hold on her sanity.

She'd been running for what felt like hours when she decided to slow her pace to a crawl. Her lungs stung with each breath she inhaled, her sluggish steps were thunderous in her ears, and her T-shirt clung greedily to her damp body. She knew it'd been a foolish idea to try and outrun her problems like she had, but she'd been desperate. She still was.

As she paused to push back a few tendrils of hair that had escaped from her ponytail, she caught sight of an off-white blur barreling across the street in her direction and, before she could react, she found her left ankle being bathed by a scratchy, warm tongue.

"Donovan! Wait! Stop! Donovan!"

Shaking her head at the sound of the familiar voice, Sydney lowered herself into a squat and began rubbing both of the dog's ears. "Hey, boy. How are you doing?" she whispered as the dog gave a low, pleased growl in response.

It only took another second for Vaughn to catch-up with the twosome. Taking in the scene of his dog grinning at him as he received the massage of a lifetime, he glared at Donovan before turning his attention to Sydney. "God, I'm sorry about this," he declared, his apology sounding sincere to everyone except the woman he was addressing. "I had to work late last night and wasn't able to take him out for his walk. I think he's punishing me for that now."

Sydney shrugged noncommittally and continued petting the dog, refusing to meet Vaughn's eyes. "It's okay. We all get restless whenever we're stuck in one place for too long a time."

The true meaning behind her words wasn't lost on him. "Yeah, well, I, uh… I'm just sorry my dog ran up to you like that. He didn't scare you, did he?"

"Nah, you can tell he's a big softie. What's his name? Didn't I hear you call him Don-something?"

"Donovan."

"After the singer?"

"Actually, he's named after this cat I had when I was kid. My dad named that cat so I'm not sure where it originally came from."

"Oh. You're one of _those_ people." The roll of her eyes was clear for all to see.

"Excuse me?"

"You're someone who can't let go of the past."

Again, the true meaning behind her words wasn't lost on him. Struggling to keep his voice even, he dropped down to a knee and sank the fingers of his right hand into Donovan's thick hair. "I can think of at least one other person who's like that, too," he muttered with a pointed look.

Shifting her brown eyes so that they finally rested on his green ones, she stared into them emotionlessly for a second before breaking the gaze and shrugging once more. "Touché. So, should I even bother to ask what you're doing here?"

"Yesterday and today were bad ideas," he intoned, his eyes raking over her grimy face with concern. "I know you think I don't understand what you're going through and you're probably right. I mean, it's impossible for me to know what's exactly going through your head, but… I don't need to know everything to be able to empathize. And I _do_ empathize with you, Sydney. It might not seem like it, but… If there was…" Vaughn chewed on his lower lip as he struggled to keep his torrent of emotions reined in. "I'd do anything to help you right now, but this…what you're doing, it's…it's a bad idea."

He waited for her to respond – to agree, hopefully, with what he was saying – but when she instead kept her eyes trained on the lines she was scratching into the hair on Donovan's head, he took that as a sign of her sustained defiance. It was time to shift his argument into a higher gear.

"Look, Sydney," he began, his voice harsher and no longer as sympathetic as it'd been just moments earlier, "even if the Agency nullified your agreement with them, you and I both know SD-6 wouldn't let you go that easily. After you'd missed a few meetings and assignments, they'd come looking for you. And if you still managed to elude them, they'd go after everyone you know. _Everyone_, Sydney. We're talking Francie and Will…your father…Dixon…_his_ family…all your professors…"

"I know."

"…every person you might have shared a class with…the salespeople at your favorite stores…the boy who bagged your groceries the last time you went to the supermarket…the—"

"I _know_."

The sharpness in her tone caught his attention and propelled to him stop rattling off his list of potential torture victims. "Okay. If you already know all this, then what are you doing?"

She opened her mouth to shoot off a sarcastic retort when she was suddenly overcome by a wave of fatigue. God, she was so tired. She was too tired to lie, too tired to think up a lie, too tired to even care enough to think up a lie.

"I… I don't know," she admitted with a forlorn shake of her head.

"You don't know?" Vaughn was clearly unimpressed by her honesty. "Considering how much risk you put yourself in, I was expecting you to have a hell of a better answer than 'I don't know.'"

"What do you want me to say? I made a mistake, okay? I just…" Dropping her head and refocusing her eyes on the tops of her running shoes, she mumbled, "I guess I just wanted to know what it'd feel like to not be me, to not be Sydney Bristow, SD-6 operative or Sydney Bristow, CIA double agent."

The melancholy in her voice stung him to the core. The scowl he'd been sporting melted away from his lips as he reached out and gently brushed his hand against her left knee. "That's not all you are, Sydney."

"I'm not so sure of that anymore."

Growing alarmed, Vaughn stood up and dug into the right side pocket of his jeans for the business card Weiss had insisted he take with him before he'd left in search of his handle. "Maybe you should… Maybe you ought to consider—"

"Don't worry about," Sydney cut in as she, too, rose to her feet after one last pat of Donovan's head. She already knew what the CIA's solution would be for her supposed 'problems' and was willing to do or say whatever she needed to avoid that hassle. "You can go back to work and tell Devlin and whoever else that the crisis is over; I'm back on the job."

"Sydney, please," Vaughn beseeched as his fingers closed upon one of the card's corners. "We're all—"

"As a matter of fact, I have a meeting with Marshall first thing tomorrow morning." With her arms crossed and pressed tightly against her chest, Sydney looked directly into Vaughn's eyes – almost as if she was challenging him – and waited for a response. The frightened and confused girl who had attempted to run from her life hours ago was now nowhere to be seen.

Knowing she had thrown up a wall he had no chance of breaking through, Vaughn removed his hand from his pocket. "You're getting sent on another mission?"

"No. I haven't had a chance to debrief Marshall on the Botswana trip yet and he's dying to know how his 'toys' performed, so I figure I'll get that out of the way tomorrow morning."

"Yeah, that's…that's probably a good idea."

"Glad we agree."

They were all business now, and Vaughn knew it. He balled his hands into fists, relaxed them, and then balled them up again, torn over what he should do next. Gazing at Sydney, he knew no one would believe that a mere half-hour ago she'd still been considered a rogue agent who was highly dangerous and needed to be contained. He'd come looking for her with a plan in mind – a course of action on what needed to be done – but things had somehow changed and he was no longer in charge.

"So, I, uh…"

"I need to go. I promised Francie I'd help her with dinner." Her arms were still crossed and her face was as blank as a stone, emotions no where to be seen.

"Oh. Okay." He scuffed at the concrete sidewalk with the toe of his right shoe, well aware that the disappointment he was feeling was splashed across his face.

"I'm sorry to be so abrupt, but I do need to start heading back home. Anyway, aren't we supposed to keep these 'accidental' meetings as short as possible?"

"Yeah." Who's the handle and who's the handler, he asked himself.

"So I'll see you around then." She turned to leave and was about to begin her jog back to her apartment when she glanced over her shoulder to add, "And I'm sorry about today and yesterday."

It was last ditch effort time for Vaughn. "Sydney, there are people at the Agency who are trained to—"

"I know," she interjected. "But I'm fine. Really. Just fine."

And with that, she trotted off into the proverbial sunset as Vaughn watched her departing figure grow smaller and smaller. 

He was losing her. That much he was sure of.


End file.
